





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































)QZ4~ 

GjfPglitK 0 __ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIR 









0 






























COMMUNITY CIVICS 


LIFE, LIBERTY, AND 
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS IN 
THE UNITED STATES 


BY 

GRACE A. TURKINGTON 

AUTHOR OF "MY COUNTRY” 




GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO 










COPYRIGHT, 1923, 1924, BY GRACE A. TURKINGTON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



T% 

1924 


V c 


QEfte athenaeum jpregs 

GINN AND COMPANY - PRO¬ 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 


JUN 30 ’?4 

(5 Cl ft 8 0 0 0 01 vn i 



PREFACE 


A textbook of civics, by whatever name, has only one reason 
for existing—to supply its readers with the ideas and informa¬ 
tion that will help them live the kind of life that will advance 
the welfare of the nation. Merely to supply facts about the 
machinery of government was long ago recognized as insuffi¬ 
cient. For many years, therefore, textbooks of civics have 
related the facts of government to certain activities of Amer¬ 
ican life, omitting all nonessentials. The author of this book 
has gone a step farther. She has led pupils first to analyze life 
in the United States into its fundamental activities; second, to 
discover for themselves that government is only an organization 
made and run by the people to fit these activities; third, to 
realize that in proportion as life is simple or complex, govern¬ 
ment must also be simple or complex; and fourth, that since 
changes in the manner of living are constantly taking place, 
changes in government must also be made constantly. 

The author believes that unless the impulse to analyze Amer¬ 
ican life is aroused in pupils, however high their ideals and firm 
their purpose, they cannot properly help adjust the machinery 
of government to meet their needs. Many an otherwise intel¬ 
ligent citizen frequently is persuaded into the belief that our 
government has failed, merely because he has not understood 
that machinery made to fit conditions that have disappeared 
or greatly changed has been retained unchanged, or that new 
machinery badly needed has not been provided. It is the 
author’s hope that the pupils who use this book will have been 
helped to approach the responsibilities of citizenship keenly 
aware that the government under which they live will be what 
they make it and will do only what they equip it to do. 

iii 


IV 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


A nation is never finished. What is handed down to pupils is 
only partly made; it must be shaped and reshaped, a little 
change made here, another there. 

The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to James 
Morgan, a close student of modern political life, to Thomas 
Nixon Carver, professor of political economy in Harvard 
University, and to James Sullivan, state historian of New York 
State, for invaluable assistance in the preparation of the manu- • 
script and in the critical reading of the proof. 


THE AUTHOR 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS.vi 

CHAPTER 

I. Four Pictures of the Real America . i 

II. The United States a Nation made by Hard Work . 22 

III. The Different Kinds of Workers America Has . 46 

IV. Something about the Organization called Govern¬ 

ment THAT HELPS THE WORK LlFE OF THE PEOPLE 65 

V. America a Nation of Homes.97 

VI. Where Work meets Home—the Community . . 129 

VII. The Machinery of Government—Voting and Law¬ 
making .159 

VIII. The Machinery of Government—Taxpaying . . 188 

IX. The Government of the Community.207 

X. A Country in which the Humblest Man is "Mr.” 

and the Highest Title "Gentleman” . . . . 225 

XI. The Kind of Leaders America Has.244 

XII. Where Youth Dwells.271 

XIII. Learning after Schooldays are Over.305 

XIV. Finding Work for Oneself and Providing Work for 

Others. 337 

XV. Making America Prosperous. 3 6 5 

XVI. Making America Beautiful .. 4 X 4 

XVII. The Outside World in America—I. 45 1 

XVIII. The Outside World in America—II. 477 

XIX. America in the Outside World.489 

XX. America goes into the Outside World Officially . 515 

XXI. The Greatest Thing in the Nation. 534 

XXII. Looking Backward and Forward. 55 ° 

APPENDIX 

The Constitution of the United States . i 

Suggestions and Questions on the Constitution . . . xvii 

INDEX. XX1 












SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 


At the start each pupil must be equipped with a loose-leaf 
notebook. All the information gathered in connection with the 
problems and exercises of text, and all the outlines made, should 
be inserted in this. At intervals notebooks should be inspected 
for credit, and at the end of the course they should be inspected, 
graded, and returned to pupils to keep. 

It is desirable that in the work of each chapter pupils should 
get some practice in (i) using the library; (2) getting infor¬ 
mation from current newspapers and magazines; (3) getting in¬ 
formation from persons who are well-informed; (4) cooperative 
work either in assembling facts required in the exercises or in 
using these after they have been assembled; (5) impromptu 
discussion of some important point; prepared discussion (per¬ 
haps debate) of an important matter; (6) planning or doing 
some act of service for school or neighborhood or community as 
a whole. The author has planned the Problems and Exercises 
so as to facilitate practice along these lines. Teachers should 
supplement at their discretion. 

At the first meeting of the civics class a survey should be 
made to discover what special abilities and equipment are 
available. The survey should show what pupils have cameras 
or kodaks, and apparatus for developing and printing; whether 
any pupil has skill in mechanical drawing or in preparing blue¬ 
prints ; what pupils have encyclopedias and other books of ref¬ 
erence in their homes; to what societies or clubs pupils belong 
and what experience, if any, they have had in serving on com¬ 
mittees, presiding at meetings, debating, etc.; what pupils own 
or have access to a typewriter or have a working knowledge of 
stenography; what pupils have lived in other communities or 
have traveled sufficiently to have a knowledge of communities 


VI 


SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 


Vll 


other than their own; what kind of home work or vacation work, 
if any, pupils have done; the different kinds of work life with 
which pupils come in contact through relatives or the location 
of the home. Whatever ability or equipment of these kinds is 
available should be made use of constantly in working out the 
Problems and Exercises and in making additional studies of 
community problems. 

The indispensable reference equipment for civics work con¬ 
sists of (i) a good atlas; (2) detailed maps of state, county, 
community; (3) a map showing the railroads and automobile 
roads of the state; (4) a good daily newspaper that has a state¬ 
wide reputation; (5) the principal local paper; (6) the latest 
Congressional Directory (for this write to the Superintendent 
of Documents, Washington, D.C.); (7) the last official state 
register or manual (for this write to your state capitol, address¬ 
ing the letter to the secretary of state’s office); (8) the latest 
report or manual of your community (a small charge is fre¬ 
quently made for these official manuals, but whatever the price 
or inconvenience in securing them, they must be obtained) ; 
(9) as many government reports as possible; (10) the World 
Almanac, the Statesman’s Yearbook, or some other annual book 
of ready reference; (11) guidebooks to the principal cities of 
the state. A civics bulletin board should be placed at a con¬ 
venient point in the school. Every event in the community 
which is of special interest to the class as students of community 
civics should be inserted here—notices of lectures, art and in¬ 
dustrial exhibits, the presence of distinguished persons, addi¬ 
tions to the library, the closing of a factory, etc. 

If possible, plan to have a delegation of the class visit the 
state capitol, the county seat, and the city hall (or whatever is 
the headquarters of your local government). Before these 
visits are made the class should prepare an outline of the things 
to be looked for and the information to be obtained. The dele¬ 
gates must be ready not only to make a formal report on their 
trip but to be questioned by the class. 



'&) Nov. 11, 1921, George W. Stephenson 

THE HERALDING OF PEACE.” WASHINGTON ILLUMINATED ON ARMISTICE DAY, 1921, 

IN HONOR OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 



















COMMUNITY CIVICS 


CHAPTER I 

FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 

THE FIRST PICTURE—A FAMOUS STEEL VALLEY 

1 . An Awe-Inspiring Scene. A sight once seen never to be 
forgotten is Pittsburgh at night. By Pittsburgh we mean that 
long stretch of Allegheny valley where, between steep, barren 
hills, stretch acres upon acres of huge smokestacks and dark 
buildings overspread by a heavy curtain of smoke that never 
lifts but does not hide the glare of hundreds of furnaces. By 
day it is a sight that makes one thoughtful. By night the 
stranger stands awestruck before it. He feels as if some miracle 
had taken place. What by daylight had been a stretch of dingy 
hillside is now a wall of purple darkness, spotted with tiny 
lights—soft orange lights that come from lamplighted homes, 
hard yellow street lights that mark the course of the zigzag 
thoroughfares of the hills. But the purple shadows and maze 
of lights are only a fantastic frame for the real picture— 
the narrow stretch of valley which one moment seems darker 
than the darkest black one has ever seen in his dreams, and 
the next moment is torn into a thousand fragments by bursts 
of fire. 

The lights on the hillside, the deep shadows, the earth, even 
the sky, seem to quiver in suspense. Again and again the valley 
is lighted by angry masses of flame, as if giving warning of a 
great catastrophe, but that is all. As the hours slip away, the 
scene hardly changes. The soft orange lights from the queer 
little houses one by one disappear, but the hard yellow lights 

i 


2 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


keep winking, and the dark valley keeps on vomiting fire. The 
stranger turns away with the dissatisfied feeling that he has 
seen the beginning of something that failed to happen. But he 
was wrong. Something did happen. 

2 . Monstrous Tasks are accomplished in this Valley. In 
that dark valley huge battleships, great bridges, miles of Rus¬ 
sian railroad were being started; great locomotives and steel 
cars that would some day penetrate remote parts of China and 
Africa were being made. There, too, was being fashioned the 
framework for hundreds of skyscrapers which, in a few months, 
would house thousands of city workers. 

This is one of America’s enchanted valleys. If measured by 
miles it would be found to constitute only a thousandth part of 
the earth’s land surface, yet it produces one sixth of the world’s 
pig iron. Without this valley there might have been no victory 
over the German armies in 1918, for the ships that carried am¬ 
munition to our allies, the transports that laid down in France 
about two million American soldiers, the guns that poured 
death into German ranks, the emergency railroads and locomo¬ 
tives that rushed troops from French ports to the firing lines, 
—all were made, in large part, of steel that came from this 
valley. But the American people spend only the smallest frac¬ 
tion of their time making war. They prefer to battle with the 
forces of nature, and steel is man’s magic weapon. It would take 
a whole chapter to name all the ways in which steel has helped 
us to defy nature: steel made it possible for us to overcome the 
Rocky Mountains and thus make San Francisco and New York 
City companion seaports; to tear down mountains and carve 
a way from ocean to ocean in Panama; to penetrate the most 
inaccessible parts of the United States with railroads; to fashion 
stoves and furnaces by which, in the coldest day of winter, the 
hugest office building, as well as the small cottage, is made 
as warm as a midsummer day; to manufacture tons of simple 
needles that have brought comfort and luxury to almost the 
whole world. The production of steel is today one of our great¬ 
est industries. Before the World War it employed more people 



© Joseph Pennell 


Like a great steel magnet the Allegheny valley has drawn workers from the 
four corners of the world. Some years a hundred thousand men work in this 
valley. Every language known to Europe is spoken here 




4 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


than live in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming 
together. The money invested is greater than the wealth of 
Switzerland. 

3 . The Most Important Part of the Valley. When one has 
heard all the facts as to the extent of our steel industry, and has 
tried to imagine in dollars the wealth it represents; when one 
gets over marveling that iron ore can be transformed into steel 
strong enough to support the weight of mountains,—then he 
wants to know about the human brains and hands that have 
made this wonder an everyday event. 

Most visitors to Pittsburgh think only of the output of the 
mills. Noise and smoke and flames fill their senses. The workers 
seem so insignificant in comparison with the hungry blast fur¬ 
naces that tower sometimes eighty, sometimes a hundred, feet 
above them, that the visitor for a time forgets that the most 
important part of the valley is the worker. But if, late in the 
afternoon, he happens to be in one of the many railway stations 
near the chain of mills, he will think of nothing but workers. 
Like a great flood men and boys pour out of the buildings. 
Train after train pulls in empty, and leaves crowded to the 
steps. Seeing these multitudes will make the stranger ask: 
"How came these hundreds of thousands of workers in this 
valley? What keeps them there? How does it happen that 
there are always enough men to feed all the furnaces and 
attend to the many other tasks ? ” The answer is simple: The 
steel mills need the men , and the men need the steel mills. 

4 . The Steel Mills stand for Work. The steel mills stand for 
work, and work stands for food, clothing, and home; therefore 
the mills will never lack workers. Like a great magnet the 
Allegheny valley has drawn workers from the four corners of 
the world, until now it shelters men from every nation of 
Europe. At one time more than half of the seven thousand men 
employed in one mill were Slavs, and fully two thirds were 
foreign-born. It seems peculiarly fitting that this industry 
which brings comfort to people in every land should also draw 
its workers from every part of the world. 



FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 5 

5 . Work means Homes for the Workers. The glare of the 
blast furnaces makes the mellow lights of the homes seem dim, 
but size and brilliance seldom determine the important values 
in life. From the mill the worker, whether he be head chemist 
or stoker, turns to some one of the homes which cling to the 
steep hillsides or which extend on the level stretches all the 
way along the valley to the heart of the city of Pittsburgh. 


Factories are springing up in every part of the nation, and always there are 
workers to fill them, for the mills need the workers and the workers need 

the mills 

The homes of many workers are very humble. Some of 
them have only two rooms, with a tiny yard in which a few 
hens make a scanty living. Others have four, five, and even nine 
rooms. On the hillsides and in the valley there is street after 
street of such houses, the monotony broken only by the lawns 
and flowers that many families have had the courage to attempt. 
Just as the cloud of smoke that hangs, day and night, over the 
valley, is the symbol of the never-ending toil of the mills, so 
the little garden patches and the lighted windows are the sym¬ 
bols of the home life of the mill people. 












6 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


By no means are all the homes of the steel valley humble 
little houses clinging to the hillsides. There are whole towns 
of spacious, attractive houses, which are owned and occupied 
by the men of the steel mills. Since the railroad and the trolley 
run to the very gates of the mills, thousands of workers live 
many miles away. And in some respects the farther away they 
live the more attractive are their homes. But whatever it is—a 
five-room house, a two-room cottage, a big brick palace, a room 
in a boarding house—and whether he owns or rents it, every 
steel worker has a home. It is the home that makes the 
steel mills possible, and the steel mills that make the home 
possible. 

6 . Home means "the Place where the Job is.” If the time 
comes that the ore fields of the United States are exhausted, 
then the cloud of smoke that rests on Pittsburgh will lift, the 
big furnaces will be lifeless, the valley will be silent. One by 
one the families will lock their doors and start life anew some¬ 
where else. The scattering would take many months, perhaps 
years, but inevitably it would come. And the one question con¬ 
stantly on men’s lips would be, Where shall I find work ? When¬ 
ever they eventually found it,—whether on farms in the Middle 
West, in lumber camps of the great Northwest, or in the great 
cities,—there they would again set up their homes. Home for 
the millions of people in the United States means "the place 
where the job is.” To understand any nation or any community 
one must know what is the work of the people and what kind 
of homes they have. 

7 . Many Other Industries in America. Only a relatively small 
number of the families of the United States get their living 
from the steel mills. There are other vast industries, as well as 
hundreds of less important ones. Some industries are housed 
in factories, others stretch out over fields and woods. What¬ 
ever the kind of work, somewhere near it are the homes of the 
workers. There are always well-worn paths from the homes to 
the mills, stores, and fields. Sometimes these paths are trolley 
lines, sometimes steam railways, often ordinary streets, but 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


7 

sometimes mere footpaths. In a Rhode Island village is a gray- 
stone cotton mill to which the workers come from the tiny farms 
by footpaths, over stone walls, through swampy meadows and 
strips of woods. The paths to the steel mills of the Allegheny 
valley are of every kind—footpaths, roads, trolley lines, steam 
railroads. The worker finds a path to the work, wherever it is. 

ANOTHER PICTURE OF THE REAL AMERICA 

8 . A Famous Valley. Five hundred miles to the west of 
the smoky Allegheny valley is another famous valley, known 
throughout the world and envied us by many a nation of 
Europe. It is the valley of the Mississippi, in which centers one 
of America’s big industries. This industry monopolizes large 
areas in the Middle Western states and overflows into every 
state in the nation. There is no mountain high enough to com¬ 
mand a view of even a hundredth part of the acres devoted to 
this wealth-making industry—the growing of corn. If all Eng¬ 
land and Scotland were one great cornfield, this area would not 
equal the land covered by the cornfields of the United States. 
A stenographer in the Department of Agriculture at Washing¬ 
ton one summer took a canoe trip on the Tennessee River, 
which so bends its course that it twice crosses the state of Ten¬ 
nessee. On his return he said, "Now I understand why the gov¬ 
ernment has a special corn investigations office—I haven’t been 
out of sight of corn since I left Washington.” Yet he had not 
been even within sight of the real Corn Belt! 

9 . Our Cornfields are World Battlefields. Once you have 
seen these great plains of corn, have walked between the stately 
rows, have listened to the rustle of the leaves, which seems at 
times like the hoarse whisperings of a great multitude of men 
and again like the slow wash of water on a sandy shore, you 
will always thrill at the mention of corn. There is something 
about the endless rows in late August that suggests armies of 
soldiers standing at attention, waiting for the word of com¬ 
mand to go into battle. And in an almost literal sense these 


8 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


cornfields are battlefields. It is on these that the United States 
fights hunger and famine, not only for its forty-eight states but 
for the crowded, ill-fed countries of Europe and other parts 
of the world. 

Before America was discovered, there were years when all 
the world was hungry part of the time, and some of it all the 
time. In 879 so great a famine spread over Europe that chil¬ 
dren were readily sold for the price of a single meal. Men 
became like beasts. In 1016 and for the five years following 
there was never enough to eat in Europe. Hunger was the com¬ 
mon lot of the people. In 1918-1923 millions of people in 
Europe and Asia died of hunger, but there was food to spare in 
the United States. It was only because the whole world had 
been turned topsy-turvy by the war, so that there were neither 
ships nor railroads enough, that America’s cornfields and wheat 
fields did not prevent starvation. 

Except in times of war disastrous and long-continued famines 
need never again sweep over those countries which trade with 
the United States. A complete corn-crop failure in the United 
States would affect every part of the world to a greater or less 
extent. But there can never be such a disaster in the United 
States, unless the farmer fails the nation, for corn can be grown 
with success in every state of the Union. In acreage, uses, 
production, and value, corn exceeds any other food crop of 
the United States. We export less corn than wheat, because 
wheat is far less bulky to transport, and because we need most 
of our corn to feed to hogs and cattle in order to have a suffi¬ 
cient meat supply. But a poor corn crop means that less wheat 
and meat products can be sent to other countries, so in a very 
real sense our cornfields are the famine battlefields of the world. 

10. One of Our Cornfields. An English traveler who left 
Pittsburgh early one morning slept the next night in an Illinois 
farmhouse which hardly made a dot in the thirty-five thousand 
acres of corn surrounding it. From his bedroom window, as far 
as his eye could see in one direction there was only the light of 
the stars to relieve the blackness, and in the other direction, 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


9 



several miles away, a few tiny lights. He had left Pittsburgh 
with the feeling that noise and smoke were for some reason 
necessary to create great national wealth; but here the silence 
was almost oppressive, yet in every direction, and for hun¬ 
dreds of miles beyond the horizon, corn was being "manu¬ 
factured” ceaselessly. The silent cornfields of the Mississippi 
Valley and the smaller fertile valleys are a vast workshop 
that helps make the United States a prosperous nation. 


© Am. Agr. Cliem. Co. 

Somewhere near the great cornfields are the homes of the workers 

11 . Corn and the Workers. So much of the work of the 
United States is done in factories by large numbers of workers 
that it is sometimes difficult to realize how great is the work that 
nature does with the minimum of help from human workers. 
Yet the most marvelous crop grown must be under the control 
of ordinary men like those who tend the blast furnaces in the 
steel valley. Three, four, and five times, at least, every part of 
the millions of acres of cornfields has to be gone over by men, 
first with plows and harrows, then with cultivators, and finally 
it has to be harvested. Corn usually requires at least one worker 
to every forty acres. The twinkling lights which the English¬ 
man saw from his bedroom window were from, the homes of 






10 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

workers employed on the great corn farm. But where in the 
steel valley there were fifty thousand workers here in a corre¬ 
sponding area were only five hundred workers. 

Just as in Pittsburgh the hillside homes are dwarfed by the 
steel plants, so here the homes seem obscured by the corn¬ 
fields. But again it is the workers that are of most importance. 
It is the little groups of houses and barns scattered over the 
Corn Belt that make the corn crop possible, and it is the fertile 
soil that gives work to the workers. No matter how long a 
search through the Corn Belt a traveler might make he would 
find only two things—work and homes. 


A THIRD PICTURE OF THE REAL AMERICA 

12 . The Land of a Magic Flower. The traveler who follows 
the cornfields of the United States toward the south comes after 
a time to rolling, upland stretches on which grow millions of 
plants which produce America’s most precious flower. Without 
these plants not only the United States but the whole world 
would be a far less desirable place in which to live. The green¬ 
houses do not grow this plant, and in many states the people 
have seen it only in pictures or at special fairs and exhibitions 
or at museums. It is not the blossom that is precious, however, 
but the "fruit” which develops from it. This consists of a 
small white boll which we call cotton. Cotton was not discov¬ 
ered by Americans. It is almost as old as history itself. In Jeru¬ 
salem today there still stands an ancient temple which for many 
years was used for a cotton market. Cotton is still raised and 
sold in India, Egypt, and many other countries, but the great 
cotton markets are in the United States, which produces three 
quarters of the world’s cotton. Cotton cannot be grown every¬ 
where. Temperature, rainfall, and quality of soil must be spe¬ 
cially adapted to this strange plant, else it will refuse to grow 
or will produce bolls that have little value. Nature gave to our 
Southern states the kind of climate and soil in which cotton 
can flourish. 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


ii 


13 . Cotton is King. When we think of kings we think of power, 
of many dependent people. And that is what cotton suggests, for 
the people of many countries are dependent on cotton for 
clothing and for the means of earning their living. England 
cannot grow cotton; but because its climate is suited to the 
manufacture of cotton thread and cloth, it has many hungry 
factories that every year require millions of dollars’ worth of 
our cotton. The men and women who knelt in the streets of 
Manchester, England, one day in 1865, were not bowing before 
the king of England or some member of the royal family. They 
were kneeling to express their thankfulness at the arrival of a 
shipload of cotton from the Southern states—the first for sev¬ 
eral years. The Civil War had stopped the export of American 
goods, and in thousands of British homes there had been hunger 
and cold because the factory spindles were idle. 

Although such large quantities of cotton have been sent 
abroad through the port of Galveston, Texas, that it has become 
the largest cotton port in the world, many millions of bales are 
shipped by railroad to distant factories. One of the great cot¬ 
ton markets of the United States is in New York City; the 
largest cotton factory is in New England. It is no wonder, then, 
that newspapers in states which never grew a single cotton plant 
give many columns every week, and sometimes whole pages, to 
cotton news—news of the crop, of the mills, of the shipping 
facilities. 

14 . What Cotton means to the People. It is because cotton 
means so much to the people of the South that they often make 
a special ceremony of the selling of the season’s first bale. In 
Houston, Texas, in a recent year the first bale brought $1200 
at auction, and the money was given to charity. The cotton was 
then presented to the Manchester Cotton Association of Eng¬ 
land, where a second ceremony took place,—another auction 
sale, the Lord Mayor of the city acting as auctioneer,—the bale 
selling for over $2000, which also was given to charity. A third 
journey and a third auction sale in Yorkshire completed the 
trip of the Texas cotton. 


12 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


15 . The Cotton Fields make Many Homes. Neither corn¬ 
fields nor wheat fields require so many workers as the cotton 
fields. Men have devised machinery for cultivating the soil, 
sowing the seed, removing the seeds from the ripened cotton 
bolls, baling the raw cotton, transforming this into thread and 
cloth, but only human hands can be trusted to pick from the 
stems the soft white bolls. There are many cities and villages 



) Allen N. Hoxsie 


Cotton must be gathered by human hands. Many cotton-picking inventions 
have been made, but none has been successful. Therefore always near the fields 
are the homes of the workers 


where work life centers in ginning-plants, cotton-storage houses, 
cotton factories, but in addition to these there are little groups 
of homes wherever cotton grows. The people may live far 
from store or church or school, but their homes are near the 
fields not only because ripened cotton cannot wait for dis¬ 
tant workers but because they have come to love the cotton 
fields as few people love the work by which they live. Often 
the home is literally surrounded by cotton fields—an island in 
a sea of cotton. 





FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 13 

A FOURTH PICTURE OF THE REAL AMERICA 

16. The Unbelievable City. Many miles from cornfields, cot¬ 
ton plantations, and steel mills is an Unbelievable City, as 
some have called it. It is one of the strangest parts of America 
and yet one of its simplest and most important parts. It is a 
city that is like a great nation comprising many cities. Some of 
all of America is here, and all of America made the city. This 
is New York City, whose population of more than five mil¬ 
lions makes it greater than Greece, Switzerland, Scotland, or 
Denmark. During the Civil War New York’s mayor sent a 
message to the common council proposing that the city secede 
from the Union and become independent. It might at first seem 
that a city containing as many people as some of the nations 
of Europe could indeed withdraw from the rest of the nation 
and become independent. But like all our great cities New York 
is not something apart from the cotton fields and cornfields, the 
iron mines, and the steel mills; it exists because of these, it is 
made of these and from these, it helps them and is helped 
by them. 

17. A City of Unrest. When the English novelist Thackeray 
first visited New York City he wrote to a friend: "I have an 
insistent longing to be in motion. There is some electrical force 
in the air and the sun here which we don’t experience on our 
side of the globe. People can’t sit still long, they must keep 
moving. I want to dash into the street now.” It was many 
years ago that Thackeray wrote these words, and each year 
the city has grown noisier and more restless. It might have 
been named after the first vessel made in the city, which 
was called Unrest. But it is more than a restless city. Dur¬ 
ing the day and most of the night the roar of the city s 
traffic, which is unlike any other sound one ever hears, tells not 
only of restlessness but of activity, of work, and of accomplish¬ 
ment. New York is not a city of sightseers or pleasure seekers. 
There are thousands of such people, but these are only a small 
fraction of the whole. New York, like the cornfields and the 


14 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


wheat fields, the cotton plantations and the steel mills, is one of 
the nation’s workshops. If the people seem always in a rush, if 
the noise of traffic never ceases, it is because there is so much 
work and such important work to be done. 

The city is a great factory and warehouse. Ships from every 
corner of the world load and unload at the city’s docks; all the 
great railroads send freight into the city; almost every manu¬ 
facturer who does a national and international business has an 
office in the city. There are office buildings more than forty 
stories high in which fifteen thousand people work. Within 
these buildings are elevators, mail chutes, telephone and tele¬ 
graph offices, lunch rooms, barber shops and manicure shops, 
news stands, and many other conveniences that suggest a 
modern community. These are almost cities in themselves. 
One of these buildings has sixty elevators, and would, if spread 
out on the level, cover a twenty-seven-acre farm. It is because 
New York buys and sells, receives and forwards, tons of goods 
every minute that these great buildings are necessary, for it is 
in them that the men who arrange the buying and selling, the 
receiving and forwarding, do their work. It is also because of 
the city’s work that the great hotels are needed. Business men 
who live in other parts of the United States come to New York 
once or several times a year to get information, to place orders 
or to get orders, to straighten out transportation tangles, or to 
meet in convention with men in the same kind of work. 

18. To know America One should understand New York. To 
know America a foreigner would not need to go farther than 
New York if he had patience to explore the city and knew 
how to interpret what he saw. The bridges, the docks, the sky¬ 
scrapers, the brownstone fronts, and the brick tenements all 
tell of the tons of freight that are constantly in motion, of the 
streams of workers going to and from work. Unless he sees long¬ 
shoremen loading cargoes into waiting vessels; visits the cot¬ 
ton exchange, where buyers from every part of the world are 
assembled; sees the warehouses filled with beef, corn, wheat, 
waiting to be shipped abroad; watches the long line of refriger- 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


15 



Our great cities, like New York and Chicago, are nations within the nation, but 
never independent of it. (From a painting by T. Oakley) 

ator cars that during the dark hours of the early morning are 
brought into the city to furnish one day’s supply of milk and 
cream; notes the never-ending lines of freight trains coming 
from every direction and leaving in every direction, and finds 





i6 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


out what they bring and carry away; looks at the day’s register 
of a great hotel to find there the names of men from England 
and Russia, from California, Texas, Florida, and Maine,—he 
will not even begin to discover the city. 

19. People and Buildings by the Thousands. While New 
York City has miles of pavements, acres upon acres of build¬ 
ings,—buildings so high and so crowded together that they 
make one feel always in the way,—to the stranger the great 
difference between its streets and the cornfields, wheat fields, 
and cotton plantations is not merely in the buildings, but in 
the people. The world seems suddenly to consist of crowds of 
human beings. They fill all the spaces. Nowhere does one see 
people singly or in small groups; it is always in twenties and 
hundreds and thousands. One may find an office with only five 
workers,—the manager, a stenographer, a bookkeeper, a clerk, 
and an office boy,—but on two sides of this room, only a parti¬ 
tion away, there will be another office with its several workers. 
Every day the city gathers into its vast area a continuous 
stream of men and women, old and young. Thousands pass 
through the city, but hundreds remain to be workers in this 
city-nation. 


WHAT THESE PICTURES MEAN 

20. Everywhere One finds Only Work and Workers. Great 

as New York is, and confusing as are its miles of streets and 
buildings, it is easy to describe it in a few words. And these are 
the same words that were used to sum up the Pittsburgh valley, 
the Corn Belt, and the Southern cotton plantations —work and 
workers. The office buildings, factories, little shops, and big 
shops are where the workers work. The miles of brownstone 
fronts, brick tenements, hotels, boarding-houses, tell most of 
the rest of the story. All of any city or town or village consists 
of only these two things—work buildings and home buildings. 

21. Both City Life and Country Life consist of Work Life and 
Home Life. At first this may seem true of the Pittsburgh val¬ 
ley, but not of a city like New York or Chicago. One thinks 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 17 

instantly of such conspicuous buildings as theaters, museums, 
schoolhouses, gymnasiums, libraries, city halls, hotels, res¬ 
taurants, police stations, which crowd a city. But all these are 
either a direct part of home life or work life or are necessary 
to one or the other. The life of a big city, to a person who lives 
in the country, sometimes seems hopelessly complicated just 
because of the maze of buildings offering recreation or diver- 



Many homes are rude mountain cabins. Work for these people is in the forests 
—hunting, cutting timber, fishing 


sion which are lacking in the country. City life is not as com¬ 
plicated as it looks. Men who work in factories and offices in a 
city can seldom go home to the midday meal. Hence restau¬ 
rants and hotel dining-rooms have been built. The ideal home 
means time for reading and the enjoyment of the fine and 
beautiful. But few homes can buy all the books and periodicals 
that the family want, so there are libraries to supplement the 
home. The schoolhouse exists to make possible the right kind 
of work life and home life. Because love of the beautiful can¬ 
not be satisfied in the cramped dimensions of the home, art 
galleries and public parks are coming to be regarded as a neces¬ 
sity. Because of the congestion of the cities, a home even for 





i8 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


families of wealth often consists of only a few rooms. This 
means that many of the home activities must be carried on out¬ 
side the home. Because of the limited kitchen and pantry space, 
there have sprung up bakeries, laundries, and delicatessen 
shops. The lack of yards has made public playgrounds, tennis 
courts, and gymnasiums necessary. As we shall show later, the 
city hall, the police station, the post office, and similar institu¬ 
tions merely help accomplish for home and work life what no 
person can well do for himself. No matter how great the dif¬ 
ferences, every community is divided into these two parts. This 
is true even of those little mountain settlements which consist 
of a few cabins. These cabins are often miles apart, scattered 
along a creek. 

It is hard to realize that such a community can be divided 
into two parts,—the work part and the home part,—for there 
seem to be only forests, great bowlders, wonderful trees, and the 
humble little gray cabins. Even if the cabins are really homes, 
where is the work? Work is the forest, the cornfield, the wood- 
pile, and the house. Every cabin has its cornfield, its sugar-cane 
patch, and its pigpen. The fields are scraggly and often forlorn, 
but they represent bread and butter to the mountaineers. 

22. America is a Place of Work and Homes. This, then, is 
America. There seems to be nothing unusual about such a 
nation, for do not England, France, Russia—all countries— 
consist of work and workers, places of work, and homes ? The 
nations differ from one another in the kinds of work, the 
methods of work, the kinds of homes, and the ideals of work 
and home. But that is only the beginning of the story, for 
these are not little things—they are as big as life itself. They 
are life. Work means the trivial tasks of life,—the washing of 
dishes, the making of clothes,—but it also means the building 
of cathedrals, gathering together the brooks and streams of half 
a state and draining them into the heart of a great city to fur¬ 
nish water for millions of people, studying the mosquito to 
learn the secret of its deadly power and thereby saving thou¬ 
sands of lives, building a railroad through a desert, building a 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


19 

subway through the heart of a busy city. The thing that mat¬ 
ters is not that America works, but that America works at a 
thousand tasks, at monstrous undertakings, with a speed and 
daring that have made her conspicuous among the nations. 
And work is the glory and beauty of America. It is the one big 
thing that makes the second big thing—the home—possible and 
beautiful. The two go always together. The one without the 
other is impossible. 

23. What Our Democracy Is. A democracy is simply another 
name for a nation of people who believe in work and homes for 
all the people all the time under the best possible conditions. 
The more kinds of work we have and the greater the number of 
workers, the more laws we must have and the more officials to 
attend to the rules. That is what makes government seem com¬ 
plicated, but it is no more and no less complicated than our 
work life and home life. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 1 

1. Read the whole chapter through before you give special attention 
to any one part of it. Prepare a brief summary of it. 

2. It has been said that the nation which produced the most iron 
'■ruled the world.” Explain this statement as fully as possible. 

3. In every large newspaper there is daily news of steel, cotton, corn, 
wheat, and the other national products. Find these columns in the chief 
newspaper of your state. Ask your parents and some of the business men 
of the community to help you interpret this news. Discuss it in class. 

4. Explain the news item given below so that its meaning would be 
clear to a child that did not know about the World War and the famine 
that followed it: 

Simbirsk, Russia, Sept. 10 (By Mail)—Villages are virtually 
growing overnight in this district on sites where a short time before 
only weeds thrived. There has been a genuine back-to-the-soil 
movement, an exodus from the cities where panicky thousands fled 
when famine came. American corn has been the influence that has 
built these villages more quickly than history grants to America’s 
pioneer mushroom mining villages of ’49. 

1T0 the Teacher. Read Suggestions to Teachers on page viii. 


20 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


5. Some part of your state grows cotton or wheat, mines coal, manu¬ 
factures shoes, or does something that connects it with one of the 
nation’s great industries. What is this chief industry ? Show on a map 
of your state the chief centers of this principal industry. Be prepared 
either to write or to give orally a picture of this industry. 

6 . Describe the chief industry of the section in which you live, in¬ 
cluding answers to these questions: 

a. Is the thing produced in your community sold in the United States ? If 
so, do you know where most of it goes? How does it reach these places (by 
truck, trolley, canal, river, or railroad) ? 

b. Is the thing produced in your community sold to other countries? If so, 
do you know to what countries? To what ocean port is it sent for shipment? 
How does it reach this port (by truck, trolley, canal, river, or railroad) ? 

c. Many of the things that are grown or mined or manufactured must be 
stored for weeks or months before they are shipped to the users. For instance, 
there are cotton-storage warehouses, grain elevators, cold-storage plants. Is 
any of the product of your community sent to such storage places ? If so, tell 
about them. 

7 . The work life of every community is either directly or indirectly 
connected in some way with distant parts of the United States and 
other countries. Show in what ways. 

8 . If each one of the forty-eight states were a separate nation, with 
different laws and a customhouse at the state line, how would this affect 
your community unfavorably ? Show how the work life of your family 
and friends is benefited because the state in which you live belongs to 
a great nation. Turn to an atlas and compare a map of Europe with 
that of the United States (be sure that both maps are drawn to the 
same scale). Measure the distance from your state to the most distant 
part of the United States; if goods were to travel this same distance 
from any point in Europe that you choose, through how many different 
countries would they go ? Discuss in class what you discover and be 
ready to take part in an impromptu debate on the question, 

Resolved, That our state has greater prosperity than it could possibly have 
if it were an independent nation of Europe. 

9. Now that you have in a general way studied the section in which 
you live, make a detailed study of it. A civics loose-leaf notebook 
should be started, to be continued throughout the year. Every study 
that you make of your community should be entered in the notebook. 
For your first study use this outline : 

a. Work buildings: factories, storehouses, barns and sheds, silos, shops, 
offices, stores, garages, railroad stations, power and light stations. 


FOUR PICTURES OF THE REAL AMERICA 


21 


b. Places of work that are not buildings: farms, mines, quarries, brick¬ 
yards, forests, harbors, streets and roads. 

c. Home buildings: single houses, tenements, apartment houses, hotels, 
boarding-houses. 

d. Things other than buildings that are related to work and home: docks, 
trolleys, telephone and telegraph wires, wireless outfits, railroads, ships, wind¬ 
mills and artesian wells, roads, streets, bridges, street lights. 

e. Buildings that are neither work places nor homes , but are closely related 
to both: churches, library, museum, schoolhouses, municipal buildings, theaters 
and concert halls, grand stands and gymnasiums, clubhouses, hospitals. 

/. Things that are related to home life: parks and playgrounds, seashore 
and other neighboring resorts, ball grounds. 

g. Government buildings: police stations, fire stations, schoolhouses, public 
library, city or town hall, voting-booths, pumping-stations, garages and store¬ 
houses for wagons and tools used on roads etc., courthouse. 

10. Describe the home part of your community or some section of 
it. How do the home buildings compare with the work buildings ? 

11. Explain why great cities like New York and Chicago are neces¬ 
sary in a nation like ours. Explain how every city is dependent on 
distant farms and small towns. 

12. Let several pupils be designated to prepare two large outline maps, 
one of the state and one of the community. From these each pupil is 
to make several copies to use in connection with the exercises of this 
chapter. 

13. Select the foreign country about which you know most, and 
begin now to learn the principal facts about its government. Set these 
down in your loose-leaf notebook, and add to them from time to time. 
Use each fact that you learn, to show what it reveals about the work 
and home life of the nation. 

14. Every nation is what the people make it. If in your study of 
other countries it seems to you that government is not an organization 
to help them in their work life and home life, but one that oppresses 
them, it is only because the people either do not have high ideals for 
work and home or are not willing to take the time and thought to secure 
the right kind of government. Decide which foreign country seems the 
least desirable in which to live, and show that it is because the people 
have left government to a few selfish persons. 


CHAPTER II 


THE UNITED STATES A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 

1. The Vast Area of the United States. Since life in the 
United States, whether in Maine or in California, consists only 
of work and home, and since government is the result of these 
two parts of life and exists for their sake, we need to know just 
what work and home in America are today and a little about 
what they have been in the past. To understand how the 
United States has become the world’s greatest workshop, it is 
necessary to recall some of the facts that we learned in geogra¬ 
phy and history. 

Probably few of us realize how enormous a country the 
United States is. We have inherited it full-grown; and unless 
we read a detailed account of its settlement or travel north, 
east, south, and west in it, we have no real understanding of 
its size. Even many of the statesmen of our early years either 
thought it unwise for the United States to expand farther west 
than the Mississippi, or else doubted that so large a territory 
could be well governed by a democratic government. Thomas 
Jefferson spoke of the possibility of both an Atlantic and a Mis¬ 
sissippi republic, and was positive that it would be foolish to 
attempt to extend our territory to the Pacific. Another early 
statesman said that "Mr. Jefferson’s opinion seems correct, 
that it will be best for both the Atlantic and Pacific nations, 
whilst entertaining the most friendly relations, to remain inde¬ 
pendent, rather than to be united under the same government.” 
Daniel Webster spoke freely of the time when there would be 
"a great Pacific republic, of which San Francisco would be the 
capital,” and one of our senators said that "the wealth of the 
Indies” would not be sufficient to make possible building a rail¬ 
road through five or six hundred miles of mountains. 


22 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


23 


2. What this Vast Area consists of. This wide strip of conti¬ 
nent represents almost every kind of land and water formation 
known to the globe—mountains, hills, plains, deserts, rivers, 
and lakes. It is the particular combination of these, plus every 
variety of climate, that constitutes the first source of the wealth 
of the nation and makes possible a thousand kinds of work life 
for more than a hundred million people. Without such lofty 
mountain ranges as the Rockies and the Appalachians, and 
without the many lesser mountain ranges and the countless 
hills that cover the continent, there would be no great rivers to 
water the wide plains, no small streams to weave their way 
through the land, for the mountains and hills are the birth¬ 
places of the tiny brooks that feed the rivers and lakes. With¬ 
out the rivers and lakes there would be no great forests, no 
famous cornfields and wheat fields, no farms yielding fruits 
and vegetables. Mountains and rivers alone cannot make a 
nation great. Great nations require great valleys, and the 
United States could not have become a vast nation without its 
famous Mississippi Valley and its many other broad fertile 
stretches. For it is the valleys that mean food. 

3. Space was the Only Thing to be had for Nothing. When 
first discovered, the part of the North American continent that 
became the United States offered only spaces in which to live and 
resources from which the necessities, comforts, and luxuries of 
life could be obtained. The early settlers moved about as they 
pleased and settled where they pleased, unless the Indians in¬ 
terfered. But that was all. Nothing but space was to be had for 
nothing. There were no houses, no fields of grain, no adequate 
shelter. There was timber in the woods, fish in the streams, 
water many feet underground, fertility in the soil, and game in 
the forests. But between the settlers and these necessities was a 
formidable barrier—the barrier of toil. Every necessity and 
hundreds of undreamed-of luxuries were here, but hidden se¬ 
curely away. Boatloads of gold from Europe could not have 
secured them. The only magic that could call them forth was 
persistent, patient effort. 


24 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


4. Why Many who tried Life in America turned back. The 

India for which Columbus was searching had silks and spices 
to reward the venturesome voyagers; the America which he 
found had only opportunity to offer. Opportunity is the great¬ 
est gift within the power of any nation to bestow. But this was 
a secret that only a few had guessed. Many a gallant European 
of noble birth who came here eagerly was looking for " walles of 
silver and bulwarkes or towers of golde . . . lakes full of 
pearls, Indian princes wearing on their arms golde and gems 
worth a city’s ransome.” Not finding these he returned to the 
comfortable life of the Old World, or tried his luck in South 
America, where the Incas had amassed treasures of gold and 
jewels which he could plunder if he had men and munitions. 

5. Opportunity meant Hard Work in the Early Days. Few 
if any of the early settlers from England and the Netherlands 
expected a life of ease in the new country. When in 1618 the 
Pilgrims sent an agent to secure King James’s consent to their 
migrating to America, to the king’s question "What profit 
might arise ? ” the answer was " Fishing.” Felling timber, build¬ 
ing houses, plowing, hunting, and fishing, were the ways in which 
the Pilgrims first made use of their opportunity. And the fish¬ 
ing and hunting were not the easy-going pleasures that the vaca¬ 
tionist of today knows. They were occupations that meant work 
in all kinds of weather, with insufficient clothing and inade¬ 
quate tools. The fate recorded of a settler in the early "Pli- 
mouth Plantation,” who, "in gathering shell-fish was so weake 
as [that] he stuck fast in the mudd, and was found dead in the 
place,” was the fate of more than one. 

No European came to America and remained, in those days 
of 1600 , unless he was prepared for hardship and hard work. 
Many who came hopefully died because they were not equal to 
the struggle. In the list of the Mayflower passengers given by 
William Bradford in his history, entries like this appear with 
tragic frequency: 

Francis Eaton and his wife dyed in the general sickness. 

Thomas English and John Allerton dyed in the general sickness. 



Great nations require great valleys, for it is the fertile valleys that mean food. In this valley of the Tennessee stretch many 

miles of cornfields. (Courtesy Russell Sage Foundation and John C. Campbell) 































26 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Many came and tried at first to shirk, but the shirkers were 
marked persons, and they soon returned or changed their 
•ways. At one time Captain John Smith found it necessary, in 
the hard-pressed little Virginia colony, to decree: "Every man 
that gathereth not as much as I do every day, the next day shall 
be set beyond the river and forever banished from the fort.” 



In the early days space was the one thing in America to be had for nothing 


6 . The Whole Story of Early America—Hard Work. From 
the days when Captain John Smith issued his work decree until 
the last frontier was reached, the story of America has been one 
story in many chapters, and the title of the story has been 
"Hard Work.” We have so often heard such statements as that 
of President Lowell of Harvard University—"We have accom¬ 
plished a feat unparalleled in history. In the course of a hun¬ 
dred years we have subdued a whole continent”—that we 
forget what these words stand for. We forget that nothing was 
made easy for the men and women who settled the first colonies 







A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


27 


and for those who came later. Savage Indians and wild beasts 
were the cause of suffering and hardship, but these were over¬ 
come more easily than the great rivers and swamps, the grim 
mountains, the burning deserts. At first every plow and ax had 
to be brought across the ocean in slow sailing vessels. Every 
kind of work had only the crudest sort of implements, for the 
industrial age of factories had not come when the most difficult 
part of the pioneering had to be done. 

7. The Western Pioneers. Long after life in the eastern 
part of the United States became reasonably comfortable, there 
was a frontier somewhere in the West. One of our famous 
naturalists, John Muir, was born in Scotland. When his father 
told him that "we’re gan to America the morn,” he said that he 
had visions of "no more grammar, but boundless woods full of 
mysterious good things; trees full of sugar growing in ground 
full of gold; hawks, eagles, pigeons, filling the sky; millions of 
birds’ nests, and no gamekeepers to stop us in all the wild, happy 
land.” But the grandfather shook his head at the boy’s joy 
and said sadly: "Ah, poor laddies, poor laddies, you’ll find 
something else over the sea forbye gold and sugar, birds’ nests, 
and freedom from lessons and schools. You’ll find plenty hard, 
hard work.” 

And the grandfather was right. The John Muir who had 
looked toward America as "a wild, happy land” was the same 
John Muir who said: "It was dull, hard work leaning over 
on my knees all day, chopping out those tough oak and hick¬ 
ory stumps, deep down below the crowns of the big roots. 
Some, though fortunately not many, were two feet or more 
in diameter.” 

While the boy Muir was cutting tough hickory stumps in 
Wisconsin, there were families leaving the half ease of this and 
the other Middle Western states for the Far West, where the 
real frontier stretched invitingly and forbiddingly, the kind of 
pioneering that tested men’s faith and courage. What this 
pioneering was the following sentences from the diary of an 
American woman will give some idea: 


28 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

November 3 (1847) —We are floating down the Co¬ 
lumbia. ... 

November 18 — My husband is sick. It rains and snows. 

We start this morning around the falls with our wagon. 

We have 5 miles to go. I carry my babe, and lead, or rather 
carry, another through the snow, mud and water almost to 
my knees. It is the worst road that a team could possibly 
travel. I went ahead with my children and I was afraid to 
look behind me for fear of seeing the wagons turn over into 
the mud and water with everything in them. 

8 . The Land of Last Chance. It was forty-two years later, 
on April 20 , 1889 , that a big canvas-covered wagon of the 
prairie-schooner type crept slowly into Arkansas City, Kansas. 
On one side of the canvas top was written: 

White-capped in Indiany, 

Chinch-bugged in Illinois, 

Bald-knobbed in Mizoora, 

Snowed under in Pike’s Peak, 

Prohibited in Kansas, 

Oklahomy or bust! 

This vivid slang tells the story of a family that had come 
through four states to try its luck in the Land of Last Chance. 
These adventurers were only one small, picturesque group out 
of many thousands of men, women, and children whose motto 
had been "Oklahomy or bust.” For on April 22 , at the noonday 
crack of a pistol, what is now known as Oklahoma was to be 
thrown open to "first come, first served.” On the evening of the 
twenty-first the fires of hundreds of camps gleamed on the hill¬ 
sides; the sound of the banjo mingled with the laughter and 
shouts of young merrymakers and the tired voices of the older 
folks. The people were impatient and restless, for they knew 
that in all the nation the richest unclaimed stretch of habitable 
country lay just before them. This consisted of two million acres 
which had been bought from the Indians by the government. 

When the great day came it witnessed the strangest sight that 
had been seen since the exodus of the Children of Israel into 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 29 

the Promised Land. At the signal seventy thousand men and 
women in prairie schooners, in buggies, on horseback, in bal¬ 
loons, on foot, rushed in mighty frantic waves into one of the 
fairest sections of the continent. By nightfall the land was all 
taken, and the nation’s last frontier was gone. "Until that year 



America was invaded by the prairie schooners. As the pioneers moved 
westward they left behind villages that have become great cities 


the makers of the census had always been able, in drawing their 
maps, to stretch a line somewhere between the older states 
and the Pacific, which marked the frontier of our organized 
settlements.” But the census makers of 1890 could indicate no 
traceable frontier. 

9. The Peaceful Invasion. The people had come to this 
last frontier just as the early pioneers had approached the first 
frontier in the time of the Revolution. The prairie schooners 




30 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


that for many weeks had dotted every road leading to the 
border of Indian Territory were the true descendants of that 
procession of sails across the Atlantic in the stirring years of 
the seventeenth century. America is the only part of the world 
that has been settled by peaceful migrations. The sword and 



© Wide World Photos 


The sword and the terror that goes with it have marked all great invasions 
except that of America 

the terror that goes with it have marked all other invasions. 
America was conquered by hard work. It is no wonder, then, 
that America has been a land of hope and of promise, for the 
conquests of hard work are those which transform continents 
into prosperous nations. 

10. A Contrast between the Pioneer America and the Amer¬ 
ica of Today. It would be a long story to tell the steps by which 
the United States has grown from a stretch of continent of 




A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


3i 


rugged mountains, big rivers, and great forests, first, to a nation 
of straggling rural villages, and then to a nation of compact 
cities, bustling towns, and enterprising rural districts. The 
long story would still be a story of hard work. But the work 
life of the nation has changed so greatly that the pioneer Amer¬ 
ica of Daniel Boone and Lewis and Clark is not the America of 
today. The early settlers had to work to the limit of their 
strength to get scanty food and the simplest kind of shelter and 
clothing. With them it was work or die. Today one day’s work 
out of every seven will buy everything that Daniel Boone and 
his friends could earn in five days’ time, working from sunrise 
to sunset. 

11 . The Tools of Work have changed. The great change 
that has made this possible is more marvelous than the magic 
changes described in fairy tales. In 1858, on a muddy road at 
the edge of a straggling village on the Allegheny River, a small 
forge was started by some blacksmiths who valued their business 
at $4800. Forty-three years later this had become a great steel 
plant, valued at $500,000,000, which was a part of that monster 
steel valley described in Chapter I. The one-man forge has 
grown into hundreds of square miles of wonder-working ma¬ 
chinery and furnaces, for in a recent year there were 427 steel 
plants and rolling-mills in the United States‘distributed through 
thirty states. As late as 1837 starving men fell in the streets of 
Philadelphia. Today, because the hand sower and the hand 
reaper have gone and intricate power machines have taken 
their places, there are ten bushels of wheat each year to every 
family in the world. Since the work of the fields cannot be done 
in factories, factory machines have gone to the fields. And 
there are factories for the changing of wheat into flour and 
elevators for the storing of grain. In every home of the early 
American the spinning-wheel and the hand loom clothed the 
family. Today one small city has 148 textile mills; and a 
single factory has twenty-four miles of looms and sixty-two 
miles of spinning-frame bobbins, manufacturing five hundred 
miles of cloth every working-day. 


32 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


12 . The Pace of Modern Work Life has quickened. Not only 
has handwork given place to machine work, but machine work 
has been transformed with the passing of the years. Machines 
that twenty years ago were setting twenty-two hundred stitches 
a minute now set more than twice that number. Speedy and 
intricate machinery has given us more things and better things, 
from shoes to watches. In 1813 there was one watch factory in 
the United States that could turn out seven complete watches 
in one day. Today there are single watch factories in the 
United States that make seven thousand watches a day and 
fourteen tons of mainsprings a year. 

13 . What has so changed Work Life? It is easy to under¬ 
stand how days and months and years of hard, back-breaking 
work have turned forests into firewood and timber for houses, 
how patient toil has raised crops in the fields and taken fish 
from the river and lakes. But patient toil could not alone sub¬ 
stitute railroads for mail coaches, automobiles for prairie 
schooners, huge blast furnaces for the blacksmith’s hand forges. 
Suppose that fifty years ago it had been a young man’s ambi¬ 
tion when he finished school to make powerful locomotive 
engines: no matter how strong or persistent he was the years 
would have slipped away until finally old age overtook him and 
his first engine would have been barely started. It is hundreds 
of steel pieces that make a locomotive. But to change iron 
ore into steel, and certain steel pieces into a locomotive, re¬ 
quires something besides hard manual work. This something 
is ideas. 

An idea is useless so long as it stays in a man’s mind. A 
person must turn his ideas into something that can be seen or 
read or touched. Sometimes such an idea becomes an invention, 
like the cotton gin; sometimes it is a formula for mixing a fast 
dye; sometimes it is a plan for manufacturing a new kind of 
cloth. It is all three kinds of ideas that have been added to 
hard work to make modern factories, railroads, bridges, tele¬ 
phones. In other words, brain work and handwork in various 
combinations are what have transformed the United States and 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


33 


the whole world. It is because America has had big planners, 
men with big ideas which they were not afraid to work out, that 
it has become a great industrial nation. 

The inventor and the organizer stand for two of the great 
forces that are transforming nations. It is easier to appreciate 
the services of the inventor, but without the organizer the in¬ 
ventor’s work would be futile. Every railroad, steamship line, 
and factory is the result of a complicated network of plans that 
include using hundreds of different inventions, buying supplies 
in many parts of the world, finding and training workers, secur¬ 
ing money to pay running expenses, devising ways of making 
the expenses less than the receipts, making changes from month 
to month to meet unexpected conditions. The fact that a bed¬ 
ridden person on an isolated farm can today listen to concerts 
and lectures given in a distant city is not merely because Mar¬ 
coni and others have invented wireless devices, but because a 
group of men worked out a plan for using these inventions in a 
way to be useful to large numbers. This plan meant securing 
the right to use radio inventions, equipping factories to make 
the outfits, borrowing money to pay expenses of manufacturing 
and selling them, working out the best methods of advertising. 
Every convenience and luxury that Americans enjoy, from 
traveling to reading an interesting book by an open fire, have 
been made possible by men whom we call organizers. A man 
may make his own fireplace and cut his own wood, but the book 
he reads is the product of a complicated organization called a 
publishing house. 

14 . America a Nation made by Inventors, Organizers, and 
Hand Laborers. Modern America, then, is the product of in¬ 
ventors, organizers, and hand laborers. In the year 1840 less 
than 500 inventions were patented in the United States; in 
the year 1920 nearly 60,000 patents were granted. Today the 
telephone alone represents 8041 different inventions; and in 
every great industry, whether it is making cotton cloth or carry¬ 
ing passengers from Boston to San Francisco, the accomplish¬ 
ment is based on hundreds of ideas and the handwork of a vast 


34 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


army. And the end is not in sight. Although much complicated 
machinery had long been used in agricultural pursuits, it was 
not until 1916 that the tractor began to displace animal labor 
in the cornfields. And only recently has a new set of inven¬ 
tions and plans made it possible for telephones to be operated 
without human operators. All large industries now have their 
research laboratories, in which men with ideas spend their time 
over inventions and formulas that are to make the world of 
tomorrow different from the world of today. 

15 . The Nation’s Invisible Workers. The turning of ideas 
into inventions and plans for organizing great industries has 
multiplied the opportunities for work in America so rapidly that 
millions have come across the Atlantic to help fill the demand 
for workers. But more marvelous than the rapid increase in 
the number of actual workers has been the multiplication of 
invisible workers. One adding machine can do the work of 
3 bookkeepers, one cotton gin the work of 7000 men, one warper 
the work of 50. Someone has estimated that the addition of 
steam power to the world through the inventions of James Watt 
and others by 1884 had added the equivalent of 800,000,000 
men’s labor to the working world. It is the invisible workers 
that have made it possible for the American of today to secure 
from eight hours’ labor more than a worker of a hundred years 
ago could secure from a whole week’s, labor. 

16 . The Savings of the People. There is still a missing link 
in our story. The inventors and planners could dream and 
plan until old age overtook them and would leave the world as 
poor as if they had never dreamed or planned, if it were not for 
a very simple thing but a powerful thing—the savings of the 
people. There have never been and never can be conveniences 
and comforts without money to make them. It has been the 
dollars of the thrifty, enterprising Americans of the past that 
have given us our railroads, roads, bridges, and the wealth of 
conveniences that make life so fascinating. Of course these 
savings were the result of hard work and useful ideas, so that 
the links are all closely woven into one chain—workers, in- 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


35 

ventors, planners, savers. There will never come a time when 
prosperity can be won or held by any other combination. The 
moment any one of the links is lost or damaged, the whole is 
weakened. 

17 . The People have had still Another Help in making 
America. To end the story here still would leave it only half 



Uudervvi.od & Underwood 


Millions of immigrants have crossed the Atlantic to help fill America’s 
incessant demand for workers 


told, for no race of men could have produced the America of 
today merely by hard work, labor-saving devices, and sav¬ 
ings. And the nation of today cannot by these means alone 
produce a nation of tomorrow that is prosperous and powerful. 
Many a farmer of China works as hard as the American farmer, 
but he has neither the luxuries nor the comforts of life as a 
result. No matter how diligently a person works, whether in 
China or America, there are many things necessary to his suc¬ 
cess that he cannot do or get for himself. It is because Ameri¬ 
cans so easily find ways of getting the help they need that they 
succeed where the people of some other countries fail. 












COMMUNITY CIVICS 


36 

This need for outside assistance is true of every worker, 
whether he is farmer or artist, miner or manufacturer. The 
farmer can hire helpers to do some of the tasks for which 
he has neither time nor skill, but even with the most willing 
workers he will often need assistance that he cannot readily 
buy. When the blight spoils his wheat, when his potatoes rot in 
the ground, when the roads to the nearest railroad station be¬ 
come impassable, when freight rates are so high that they eat 
up his profits, when a mysterious disease attacks his hogs—then 
he faces discouragement and failure unless help is given him. 

18 . What happens when the Worker cannot help himself. 
This outside help the farmer and other workers can get in one 
of two ways, often in both ways: (1) by calling on their friends 
and acquaintances who have the same difficulties to form an 
organization to help each other; (2) by calling on all the 
people, whether they are wheat-growers or manufacturers of 
shoes, to give them assistance. The first way means that the 
people form associations like the grange, the cooperative mar¬ 
keting associations, chambers of commerce, labor unions. But 
even these often fail to give all the assistance needed. When 
an association does not give needed help, then the worker— 
whether he is a farmer, a doctor, a lawyer, a manufacturer, a day 
laborer—expects all the people to help him. Of course the 
only way that all the people can help is through an organi¬ 
zation to which they all belong. This organization we call 
government. 

19 . Government has been made Bit by Bit. It is as natural 
for the American people to help themselves through organiza-wv^ 
tions as it is for them to attempt new and difficult tasks. In 
1921 a group of New Yorkers, consisting of twenty-eight fami¬ 
lies, wearied with city life, started in automobiles for Buhl, 
Idaho, where they had purchased farms on irrigated land. At 
the end of the first day’s journey the travelers held a meeting 

to adopt rules in regard to driving, precedence on the road, and 
camp sanitation. If one automobile met with an accident should 
all the others stop until the damage was repaired? When camp 



It is the combination of hard work, inventions, business organizations, and 
government help that has made factories and railroads possible. (Courtesy 
of The Nation's Business) 











COMMUNITY CIVICS 


38 

was made for the night who should find water? Should every 
family search for itself, or should one or two attend to this for 
all the others? If for any reason one family dropped behind 
for a day, how should this be arranged? Problems like these 
began to arise almost immediately and made the early law¬ 
making meeting a necessity. 

In much the same way our government has been made bit 
by bit as the people needed protection and assistance which 
they could not provide for themselves. 

20. Some of the Ways the People have helped themselves 
through Organizations. One of the many illustrations of the 
way that the American people first get the help they need 
through simple, unofficial organizations and later through gov¬ 
ernment is the establishment of the first regular post office in 
Boston in 1677 in response to a petition of the merchants of 
the city to the legislature. 

We whose names are under written hearing many com¬ 
plaints made by merchants and others of the loss of letters; 
whereby merchants especially with their friends and em¬ 
ployers in forraigne parts are greatly damnified. . . . Our 
humble request ... is that they will please to depute 
some meet person to take in and carry Letters according 
to direction. 

Up to this time in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as elsewhere, 
men had sent their business letters by friends or messengers 
employed jointly by groups of business men. This had proved 
unsatisfactory, and in despair they appealed to the official part 
of the colony to do this particular task for them. 

21. The People have always "made” Government. Every 
period of our history furnishes many similar illustrations of the 
way in which Americans have together devised the necessary 
helps for pursuing their work with the least friction and the 
greatest efficiency. One has only to read the diaries and letters 
of men long since dead to be reminded how in the days of the 
gold-seekers in California, everywhere men quickly formed them- 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


39 


selves into little unofficial groups to make and enforce rules 
relating to their work. In the diary of one of the "forty-niners” 
occurs this entry: 

Oct. 27, 1850. . . . We had a meeting of the miners 
at our place yesterday afternoon to decide in regard to 
ditch and water rights, and it was a hot one. Some of them 
claimed that water was as free as air and no one had a 
right to monopolize it, and they would have carried the 
day, but Anderson proposed as a compromise that all in¬ 
terested should pitch in and build a ditch on shares. As 
there were only a dozen or so who had any use for the 
water outside of the creek bed, this was agreed to. 

What this particular group of gold-seekers did to secure water 
rights is what the people of several states now accomplish 
through state legislatures. Laws have been passed regulating 
the use of streams and canals so as to avoid waste and to give 
to all an equal share of water for irrigation purposes. Commis¬ 
sions have been appointed to see that these laws are carried out. 

Forty years later a similar but more difficult task was accom¬ 
plished in another part of the West. On April 22, 1889, the 
Land of Last Chance was opened to settlement by act of Con¬ 
gress, but Congress had absent-mindedly adjourned without 
providing any kind of government for this territory. This 
meant that between April 22 and the following December, 
when Congress would meet again, Oklahoma would be a land 
without laws or policemen. When the people discovered the 
blunder of Congress many prophesied that terror would reign 
the moment the United States cavalry was withdrawn—and 
the duties of the cavalry ceased with the firing of the pistol 
at midday on April 22. On April 18 a newspaper reporter from 
an Eastern city forwarded this telegram to his paper: 

Arkansas City, Kansas, April 18. —If the 
bearing and general get-up of the men who have 
arrived here thus far go for anything, it may be 
pretty safely assured that Oklahoma after the 
opening day will be a scene of many bloody con¬ 
flicts. The streets of Arkansas City are filled 
with men each one of whom is a walking arsenal. 

Each man regards his neighbor with distrust. 




4 o COMMUNITY CIVICS 

But the reporter’s telegram of the next day included these 
items: 

In Arkansas City an office has been estab¬ 
lished in a tent, upon which is displayed this 
appeal: 

Wanted —ioo men to join our party for 
protection and justice. 

A general movement toward the formation of 
protective groups has set in. A dozen men will 
agree to settle in the same neighborhood and 
stand together against claim jumpers and horse 
thieves. 

April 22 came and went. At the end of the first day leaders 
had begun to show themselves, and before seven days had 
passed an impromptu government was in operation. At the 
end of a week one town, Guthrie, had a population of fifteen 
thousand living in tents. Soon courts had been improvised, a 
city council and a mayor had been elected, and the place was 
as law-abiding as any town in the United States—all the result 
of the spontaneous wishes of the people. This was true of all 
sections of the Land of Last Chance. Although the local gov¬ 
ernments that sprang up everywhere within the territory had 
no legal status, and no power except that of public opinion, 
they remained in force until Congress met in regular session 
and provided a regular territorial form of government. 

If the people had been content to decide by means of fists 
and guns who should own the plots of land, and if each had 
been willing to dig his own well and to do all his own work, then 
government would not have been necessary. If today farmers 
gave up raising wheat because of the blight and turned to some 
other crop not subject to so destructive a disease; if they were 
content to raise only as much of any crop as they could use 
themselves or could sell in neighboring towns, then they would 
need fewer laws dealing with railroads. The determination of 
the American people not to be hindered or hampered in their 
work by their inability to do certain things for themselves 
determines what the government officials in our state capitols 
and at Washington shall do. 




A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


4i 


22 . Why our Government seems Elaborate. When we remem¬ 
ber that there are four hundred and eighty-eight different classes 
of work and not only millions of workers already employed, but 
multitudes at ports in Europe and Asia waiting to come to this 
country, we can understand a little better that the mere size of 
our nation makes necessary an enormous amount of government 
help of different kinds. For every one of the four hundred and 
eighty-eight occupations there must be many rules and officials. 
Some of these rules are laws passed by Congress, others are 
laws passed by state legislatures, and still others are ordinances 
passed by cities and towns. Because some of these men per¬ 
form their duties in the magnificent Capitol at Washington, 
others in venerable or beautiful state capitols, or less preten¬ 
tious city and town halls, which often seem out of touch with 
the bustling world of steam whistles and typewriter clatter, we 
sometimes forget that it is their task to help make the whistles 
blow and to bring prosperity to every part of the United States. 

23 . Government Officials are chosen from our Workers. It 
is important to remember that the makers of these rules and 
those who carry them out are not separate from the. workers 
in factories, offices, and fields. Our presidents, congressmen, 
judges, mayors, all are plain people earning their living at 
ordinary occupations until they are chosen to become for a 
few years government workers in capitols, courthouses, and city 
halls. In a recent year the members of Congress represented 
these different occupations: 


Lawyers. 333 Merchants.3 

Editors.24 Postal workers .... 2 

Farmers.22 Capitalists ...... 2 

Manufacturers .... 19 Printers.2 

Real estate, insurance . 13 Dentists.2 

Bankers.n Commission merchants . . 2 

Professional officeholders . 8 Iron-molder.1 

Doctors ...... 8 Wholesaler.1 

Teachers. 7 Glass-blower.1 

Mining engineers ... 5 Lumber dealer .... 1 

Contractors. 3 Miller.1 

Chemists . .... 3 Well-driller.1 

Public-utilities owners . . 3 Unlisted and doubtful 48 














42 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


24 . No Worker can succeed Today without Government As¬ 
sistance. Some workers seem never to understand how much 
help government gives them, and therefore have the feeling 
that they alone deserve credit for all their success. Every 
person who believes himself independent of lawmakers and 
government officials is a dangerous American. One worker of 
this kind in a community might do little harm, but many such 
persons would give dishonest, unpatriotic men opportunities 
to make the wrong kind of laws and spend the people’s money 
to their own advantage. The result would be disastrous. 

For instance, if an inefficient mayor should be elected, the 
wrong men may be appointed as heads of the police and fire 
departments, as building inspectors, members of the school 
committee and board of health, and other boards. This may 
mean that the milk and water supply of the city is not properly 
tested, and many of the people are victims of preventable 
diseases. It may happen that the doctor called in is incompe¬ 
tent and fails to give the right treatment, so that the illness is 
unnecessarily prolonged. If there had been the right kind of 
state medical law and the right persons on the state medical 
board, such a physician would not have been allowed to prac¬ 
tice. Sickness always results in loss of time and money. 

An incompetent fire chief may mean that a fire in one’s 
place of work is not quickly extinguished. If the fire destroys 
completed work or makes it impossible to continue work for a 
considerable time, wages are stopped and profits are decreased. 
An incompetent street department can in the case of bad snow¬ 
storms or heavy winds so hamper all the work life of a city that 
expensive delays will result. The wrong school board can do 
much harm if, instead of providing the best possible teachers 
and textbooks, it spends its money for nonessentials and sends 
its young people into the working world poorly trained. 

Even if a person is fortunate enough never to be ill him¬ 
self, never to have his place of business injured by fire, never 
to be kept from work by storms, never to have been handi¬ 
capped by inadequate school training, yet every day his life is 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


43 


affected by all these things. The fire that destroys a place of 
work throws workers out of employment to compete at lower 
wages with other workers. Because there is one less building 
to tax, the tax on the other buildings must be increased, which 
in turn raises rents and makes profits less. The snowdrifts on 
the sidewalks of a great city affect the life of distant towns and 
cities by delaying important telegrams, letters, checks, or goods. 

If Americans today go about their work and enjoy their 
homes without understanding how the government of town, 
state, and nation helps or hinders them, the United States will 
soon become a backward nation. There is no mysterious power 
that makes government efficient. Either the people must attend 
closely to it for the good of all or else some small group of 
people will attend to it for their own profit and not for the 
welfare of all the people. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1. For your first lesson read the whole chapter through, then make 
an outline of it. 

2 . What is the largest country in North America ? in South Amer¬ 
ica ? in Europe ? in Asia ? in Africa ? Compare each of these with the 
United States in area, population, favorable agricultural features. 

3. Some countries would be more prosperous if they were smaller. 
Can you tell when size is a handicap ? Is the size of the United States 
an advantage? In answering these questions consider the ideas that 
some of our early statesmen had about the nation. 

4 . Has the United States any deserts, mountains, or swamps that 
are a handicap? Do any countries that you know about have large 
areas which are a handicap to them ? 

5. At one time Aaron Burr planned to set up a separate government 
west of the Mississippi. Consult your textbook of history and the ency¬ 
clopedia to learn about this plan. Do you think that it could have 
succeeded? Why? 

6. If you have studied the history of your own state, reread the 
part which tells about the early settlers of your county and of the 
other parts of the state. Be able to tell or to write, as the teacher 


44 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


decides, "How our State was made by Hard Work.” Select the person 
among the early settlers who seems to you most deserving of honor 
because of the hardships he overcame and learn all that you can 
about him. 

7. In some states Pioneers’ Day or Founders’ Day is celebrated. 
Does any part of your state have such a celebration? In many states 
schools, colleges, patriotic societies'—sometimes whole communities— 
give pageants showing "America’s Making” or scenes of the early days 
of the state. Have you seen any such pageant? If so tell what was 
depicted. If no such historical celebration or pageant has been given in 
your community, let the class draw up a plan for one. 

8. What statues or tablets have been erected in your state in mem¬ 
ory of the early settlers ? Are there any houses or buildings still stand¬ 
ing that are connected with the early people ? In California there is still 
preserved one of the wheels of the first wagon to cross the mountains 
from the East. Perhaps there are some such relics in your statehouse 
or one of your museums. 

9. Did the men and women who obtained land in the "Land of Last 
Chance” get something for nothing? Is there any idle land in your 
neighborhood or state? If part of this should be given to you, what 
must take place before you could get anything from it ? 

10. Make a list of the ten principal kinds of work in your state. 
Select one of these and learn as much as you can by observation and 
asking questions about the inventions which made these possible. 

11. Explain what is meant by the statement that inventions would 
be valueless without men who have the ability to organize. Did Alex¬ 
ander Graham Bell or Eli Whitney or Robert Fulton have anything to do 
with the manufacture of telephones, cotton gins, and steamships? 

12. Who have been some of the great organizers of work life in the 
United States ? Select one such person to investigate. Perhaps one or 
two members of the class will investigate and report. 

13. Find out about some of the present-day inventors, discuss the 
value of their inventions, and show how these may affect the future 
work life of the nation. 

14. There are many discoveries besides inventions that affect work 
life. The means of destroying the boll weevil, of preventing fungous 
growth on trees and plants, of making a fertilizer, are some of the 
many ways in which work life is changed. What discoveries of this kind 
affect your neighborhood ? What still needs to be done ? 


A NATION MADE BY HARD WORK 


45 


15. What is an invisible worker? The next mentions some of the 
ways that the people have been helped by invisible workers. Suppose 
that a girl employed as a telephone operator loses her position because 
the company has installed an automatic system by means of which 
each person secures his number without the aid of an operator. What 
could you tell her to show that everybody is in the end benefited by 
such inventions? 

16. Some people have feared that a time would come when there 
would be so many invisible workers that most of the people would have 
too much leisure. Do you think such a time can come ? There has never 
yet been a time when there were enough people to do the things that 
needed to be done. Think of some of the kinds of work and service for 
which there are never enough people. 

17. Has there ever been and can there ever be something for noth¬ 
ing? If you own anything that has cost you nothing in time or money 
or effort, it has cost someone some or all of these. Find out whose hard 
work made this possible. 

18. A celebrated American recently said that the country was suf¬ 
fering from too much prosperity. He meant that some people secured 
food, clothing, and the things they wanted too easily. What do you 
think of this statement ? 

19. When is an idea valuable? Show how an idea that is to benefit 
workers is closely related to manual workers, organizers, and savers. 
Can you think out what would happen if inventors and organizers, should 
drop out of the life of the nation? 

20. Show that every kind of worker is dependent on the savings of 
the people. 

21. What are the names of some of the organizations (perhaps you 
call them societies) in your community that are doing useful, helpful 
things ? 

22. Show that very little can be accomplished speedily and well with¬ 
out an organization. During the World War what would have happened 
if each town had made bandages and hospital supplies for the soldiers 
without reference to what was needed or what other towns were doing ? 

23. What things are you doing or planning to do with other people ? 
Are any of the groups simple organizations ? 

24. Explain how government has been made. Do you know of any 
private organizations or undertakings which in a few years may become 
a part of government? 


CHAPTER III 


THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS AMERICA HAS 

1. What is a Nation? Centuries ago a Greek general said to 
his army, "Men, not walls, not empty ships, are the city.” A 
rear admiral of our navy, when asked whether our ships were 
superior to those of other nations, said: "A navy isn’t ships. 
A navy is men.” What the Greek general said of the city and 
the American naval officer said of the navy is also true of the 
nation. 

2. The Chief Difference in Nations is in the People. The 

greatest difference between nations is not in size or kind of con¬ 
tinent, but in people. The United States, with all its natural 
wealth of rivers, fertile plains, and minerals, might still have 
been a backward nation. That the United States is today one 
of the great nations is due partly to the things we have de¬ 
scribed and partly to the character of the people. What has 
taken place in the United States never can happen again—a 
nation was formed out of a new piece of continent. Only the 
brave and adventurous could succeed at such a task. Therefore!’ 
for more than two hundred years most of those who came to( 
America were braver and more eager than those who remained 
behind. The convict, the laggard, the shirker, also came invol¬ 
untarily, but even they were transformed by the magic effect 
of the vast new world or else were lost in the current. 

The timid, the easily satisfied, are always those who will 
take no risks. Crossing oceans, pushing frontiers westward, 
enduring loneliness, appeal only to the hardy. If by some chance 
there were still a new continent to be settled, it would be the 
more adventurous men and women of every nation, including 
America, who would rush to it. Then would take place what 
happened in America: the people of the new nation would work 

46 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 47 



© Detroit Pub. Co. 

John Alexander, a famous American artist, has painted on the walls of the 
great Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh throngs of workers with faces turned 
toward work. In these faces he has shown the spirit of eagerness of the 

true American 


a little harder and accomplish more difficult tasks than the 
older nations. But there can never again be the same kind of 
testing that this nation has had. Inventions and hard work 
have filled the world with tools for cutting forests, tilling the 





COMMUNITY CIVICS 


48 

soil, removing tree roots, draining swamps, building houses. 
If a new continent exactly like North America should suddenly 
appear, the settlers would take with them portable houses, 
steam sawmills, ready-made clothing, canned foods, automo¬ 
biles, and motor boats. They would begin the work of making 
a new nation not where the Virginians began it, in 1607 , but at 
about 1900 . The Americans who have in them the blood of 
men and women who helped found a nation before life had been 
made easy have an inheritance that is priceless. 

3. Not All the People believe in Hard Work. Not all the 
millions of people in the United States, however, are hardy and 
brave and enterprising. In later years many have crossed the 
Atlantic to make their homes here, knowing that they would 
find houses already built for them to live in and more comforts 
than any other nation could offer. In many cases agents from 
the United States personally conducted immigrants to America 
—arranging for their passage across the water and securing 
work for them the moment they, landed. In other cases men 
and women came to join friends or relatives, who met them at 
the dock and made everything easy for them. 

It is not a simple matter, then, to describe the American 
people of today. Not all of them believe in work, many look 
on it as a necessary evil, some believe in it for others but not 
for themselves. The following will give an idea of most of the 
different work ideals in the United States of today. 

4. Some Americans believe in the Right to be Lazy. About 
forty years ago a Frenchman named Paul Lafargue wrote a 
book called "The Right to be Lazy.” He praised the ancient 
Greeks for their "contempt of work.” He even praised the na¬ 
tives of Africa, who work only enough to obtain food, and 
pointed scornfully to people of the countries who work long and 
hard for food and countless other things. Thousands of copies 
of Lafargue’s book have been sold in every part of the world, 
and many people have let themselves be deceived into believing 
that what they most desire is a day in which there is as little 
work as possible. 



DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 49 

5. The Men farthest down are the Jobless. The "right to 
be lazy” means the "right not to work”; but when an American 
investigator traveled through Europe to study the people of the 
different nations, he found that the most forlorn human beings 
everywhere were the jobless men. Early one morning in London 
his attention was attracted by a "strange, shapeless, and dis¬ 
reputable figure which slunk out of the shadow of a building 


© Keystone View Co. 

The most hopeless persons in all the world are the jobless. They are the 
unskilled workers and the misfits 

and moved slowly and dejectedly down the silent and empty 
street. ... He turned neither to the left nor to the right, but 
moved slowly on, his head bent toward the ground, apparently 
looking for something he did not hope to find.” The life stories 
of these men differed widely, but the one important fact about 
them all was that they were jobless, and this had brought them 
only misery. 

One will often see bitter, discontented faces among the 
workers of a nation, but never the misery that can be found in 
the faces of the chronic idlers. No one knows just how many of 




50 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


these misguided people live in America, but there is a small 
army of them. They ride in empty freight cars, they ask lifts 
of passing automobiles, they travel on foot leisurely from state 
to state, begging, thieving at times, committing petty offenses 
in order to get short jail sentences during the cold winter 
months. When illness and complete helplessness finally come 
upon them, they find a lodging in a free hospital or in a "poor 
farm.” 

6 . Idleness cannot bring Happiness. Not all those who 
believe in the right to be lazy are "tramps.” Many are the 
sons and daughters of wealthy parents. Enough money has 
been accumulated in the past by their relatives to make it un¬ 
necessary for them to work. There are probably more rich men 
who work hard than rich men who do not. Yet there are many 
idle rich. But their riches and the right to be lazy bring them 
no happiness. During the World War most states passed emer¬ 
gency laws requiring able-bodied men between certain ages to 
work at some necessary task. Now that war days have gone 
there are again many people who willingly live on the work of 
others. They differ from the tramp class simply in this, that 
they live on the stored-up work of their relatives, for that is 
what fortunes are, while the tramp must steal or beg the 
stored-up work of strangers. 

7. Some Americans look on Work as a Necessary Evil. 
Besides idlers and shirkers the United States has many people 
who do almost as much harm. They are the clock watchers. 
They are always looking forward to the time when they will 
have less work and more leisure, and even hope to have a long 
stretch of years with no work and all leisure. This constant 
looking ahead spoils the years in which they should be finding 
their greatest happiness. Leisure is one of the things least un¬ 
derstood. It is a time for doing things, not a time for idleness. 
The only difference between workdays and leisure days is in the 
kind of things the person does, or the way he does them, or both. 

What is worth doing with one’s leisure is one of the things 
young people must learn as the days go by. Dr. Samuel John- 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 51 

son, a famous English scholar, once said that the reason why so 
many men took to drink was that they were not interesting 
enough to themselves in their leisure to get on without it. 
Leisure is a source of pleasure and profit only if we know how 
to interest ourselves anywhere and at any time. Lord Lever- 
hulme, the leading commercial genius of Great Britain, after 



Leisure is time spent in doing things, not in idleness 


forty strenuous years began to look for a place where he could 
take life a little easier. He bought two islands in the outer 
Hebrides of Scotland, saying that he had found no more restful 
place. But he told a friend: "I get no pleasure out of an abso¬ 
lutely idle holiday. I have never spent a holiday doing noth¬ 
ing.” It was not strange therefore that almost at once he found 
himself rebuilding the town hall of one of the towns, rearrang¬ 
ing its crooked streets, planning the improvement of the harbor, 
and financing a great fish-canning business. 





52 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


8. Some Americans are Idle Part of the Time. Not all 
idlers are willing loafers. Many of the men with shuffling feet 
and hopeless faces are a part of the temporarily unemployed— 
an army which, like a great black shadow, spreads over a large 
part of the world. Even though America is the "home of the 
job,” there are always men and women temporarily out of 

work. In New York 
State every year 170,- 
000 more men are em¬ 
ployed in factories in 
January than in Octo¬ 
ber, and 140,000 more 
persons are at work 
in canning-factories in 
September than in Feb¬ 
ruary. In Kansas 120,- 
000 more workers are 
required in the wheat 
fields at harvest time 
than at any other part 
of the year. These are 
conditions in only two 
of the states. This 
means that a little army 
of workers is con¬ 
stantly on the move 
back and forth as fac¬ 
tories open and close 
and as the crops ripen and are harvested. The migrant worker 
usually has little skill to offer the working world. He is a left¬ 
over and must take what he can get. Because the shifting from 
one kind of work to another makes the worker restless, many 
of these men after a time join the chronic loafing class. 

9 . Some Americans believe in Slow Work and Poor Work. 
It does not seem possible that anywhere in the United States 
there is a person in his right mind who believes in poor work. 



Underwood & Underwood 


These men are not hopeless, but they are out 
of work and restless 







DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 53 

We know that there are dishonest, cowardly persons who would, 
if they could, sell plated silver for solid silver, worn-out land 
for fertile land, watered milk for rich milk. But such people 
seldom boast of what they do. There are people, however, who 
are not only dishonest but boast of it to their friends. 

One winter in a factory that manufactured automobile en¬ 
gines, two engines in every five were returned by its customers 
with the complaint that they were imperfect. After many 
months it was discovered that certain of the workers had an 
agreement among themselves to do poor work. They believed 
that the owners were paying them low wages and gaining great 
riches for themselves. So without trying to learn the facts they 
took this dishonest way of getting even. 

It is not the employees alone, however, who do dishonest 
work. A manufacturer who sold to the United States raincoats 
which were supposed to be made of the best materials possible 
to protect soldiers in rain and snow was sentenced to jail for 
several years because his raincoats were found to be made of 
such poor rubber that they were no protection even in mild 
storms. Still another company used such inferior materials in 
a skyscraper that it was building that when the structure had 
reached the eleventh story it toppled over and killed many 
workmen. 

Many workers seem to be afraid that there will not be 
enough work to go around if they use all the skill and speed 
possible. So they take various ways of substituting inefficient 
methods for efficient methods. Although this is an age of labor- 
saving devices, in some cases workers insist on doing things the 
long, tedious way through the mistaken idea that they are 
making more work for themselves and others. At one time a 
rule of a plumbers’ association required all piping for a building 
to be cut "by hand power on the job.” The fast, efficient, and 
economical way was first to sketch the job to be done, then 
have all the pipe cut by machinery in the shop and taken to the 
building, ready for placing. The whole work of the nation has 
been slowed down a little because of rules like this. 


54 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


These are only a few instances of the wrong spirit of work 
—a spirit that never laid a transcontinental railroad, never 
planned a national system of telephones, never built a Panama 
Canal. It is the spirit which, if persisted in, will change the 
eager, prosperous America into a backward, poverty-stricken 
land. The chief reason that the workers in the United States, 
whether employers or employees, have for many years made 
more money and had more comforts than the workers of other 
nations is that in every industry in the past they have turned 
out from two to five times as much work. This was because 
they worked more eagerly and had more labor-saving machin¬ 
ery. If Americans slow down their speed and refuse to use 
labor-saving methods and devices, there will be lower wages 
and less prosperity. 

10 . Some Americans want Substitutes for Work. Many per¬ 
sons who look on work as a necessary evil are constantly seek¬ 
ing substitutes for work. Some of these want to seize the stores 
of gold and silver, the factories and the great buildings, the 
fine homes of the wealthy, and divide these among the people. 
They really believe that such a division of things would make 
all the poor people well-to-do and that everybody would have 
to work less. They do not understand that a factory cannot be 
divided up except for kindling wood and old iron. A factory is 
wealth only if it is filled with people doing necessary work. 
Gold is worthless until men have produced food and other 
articles that they want to exchange. If the people are looking 
for a short day and easy work, then the gold and the factories 
will have small value. A locomotive engine has no value until a 
trained engineer sits inside. A typewriter would be only a 
curious machine to show in a museum unless there was some¬ 
one who had learned how to make it write more and better 
letters than could be written by longhand. Just in proportion 
as Americans are skilled and competent workers, gold, factories, 
office buildings become valuable. Just as fields cannot be sown 
or harvested without human brains and hands, so factories and 
railroads will yield wealth only through human toil. 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 55 

11 . Some Americans want to change the Whole Plan of 
Work Life. A land in which everybody worked and no person 
received more pay than anyone else has never existed. But 
there are some people who believe that all the nations should 
plan their work life in this way. Although they admit that some 
persons are better workers than others, that some can do the 



It took more than fifty years of hard work to earn the money necessary to 
build this beautiful home. (Courtesy of the Davey Tree Expert Company) 


difficult tasks and others only the easy ones, yet they would 
give each the same share of the profits. At first this theory 
seems a very beautiful one, but the experiment has been tried 
and has never succeeded. According to the agreement drawn 
up by the agents who financed the Pilgrims who came to Amer¬ 
ica in 1621, "all such persons as are of this colonie are to have 
their meate, drink, apparell and all provisions out of the com¬ 
mon stock and goods of the said colonie.” At the end of seven 
years all the property of the colony was to be divided equally 
among the colonists. But from the first the plan did not work 
as its makers expected it would. So in 1623 the Pilgrim leaders 







56 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


. . . begane to think how they might raise as much corne 
as they could and obtaine a better crope than they had 
done, that they might not languish in miserie. At length, 
after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice 
of the cheefest amongest them) gave way that they should 
set corne every man for his owne perticuler . . . and so as¬ 
signed to every family a parcell of land . . . and ranged 
all the boys and youth under some familie. This had very 
good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as 
much more corne was planted than other waise would have 
bene by any means the Governor or any other could use. 

The Pilgrims never went back to the plan of sharing alike. 

They begane now highly to prize corne as more precious 
than silver, and those who had some to spare begane to 
trade one with another for small things. . . . That they 
might therefore encrease their tillage to better advantage 
they made suite ... to have some land given them for 
continuance. 

12 . How the New Plan of Work was tried in Russia. Every 
little while some group of people have set up a community of 
their own, attempting to do what the Pilgrims failed to do. 
These, too, have failed, yet many men and women have con¬ 
tinued to dream of a nation in which everybody had as much as 
everybody else. In such a land they thought everybody would be 
rich! Strange to say, there came a time when this experiment 
could be tried, not in a little nation but in one of the largest. 
This was in Russia. Soon after the Czar was deposed, in 1917, 
the government was seized by a little group of men and women 
who believed firmly that they could do the impossible. 

So for a while this government, which was called Bolshe¬ 
vism, flourished. The government maintained a strong army 
that was supposed not only to ward off outside enemies but to 
compel the people to obey the laws of the new government, yet 
peasants seized land and refused to give it up, men stole what 
others had saved, and everywhere there were lawlessness, hun¬ 
ger, and terror. 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 57 

When 1921 came a terrible famine swept over Russia. There 
had been drought, but the devastation of the sun was not so 
great as the devastation of idleness. Those who wanted work 
could not find it; those who did not want to work roamed from 
place to place, robbing and killing. Mountain sides were full of 
people living on roots and bark; little children, wild-eyed, like 
little animals, wandered about with no one to hinder. The road¬ 
sides were strewn with the bodies of those fleeing from hunger 
but overtaken by death. 

13 . Why the Experiment that Russia tried must always fail. 
Russia tried an experiment that can never succeed in a world 
put together as this one is. To take away from every person the 
incentive of doing the most and the best work of which he is 
capable will always result in catastrophe. What a writer in 
1621 said of the experiment of the Pilgrims will always be true: 

Even so men blow the bellows hard, when they have an 
iron of their own a heating, work hard whilst their own 
house is in building, dig hard whilst their own garden is in 
planting; but is it so as the profit must go wholly or partly 
to others, their hands wax feeble, their hearts wax faint, 
they grow churlish, and give cross answers. 

14 . The Misfits and the Slackers do not match the Continent. 
The people of America whom we have just been describing do 
not match the continent. They do not go with our Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, our Great Lakes, or our rockbound Atlantic coast. They 
are all misfits. But they are here in large numbers and are 
today helping to make the America of tomorrow. They help 
pass the laws, help elect mayors, and send representatives to the 
state and national legislatures. They mingle everywhere with 
other people. They are in no one city, no one suburb of a city, 
but here and there in every part of the nation. Every office, 
store, factory, and farm has its shirkers and slackers, its ineffi¬ 
cient workers who are unhappy and restless. 

15 . The Americans who dream Dreams and make them come 
True. But there is another America, that gives us hope and 
makes us eager and proud. In every village and country cross- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


58 

roads, in every city and town, there are men and women, boys 
and girls, who work as the pioneers worked, and glory in their 
work. There are men who still dream impossible things and 
make their dreams come true. 

16 . All Great Americans have been Hard Workers. All the 
men whom we call great believed in hard work. Roosevelt, who 
worked harder than most men, said, "Not once in a thousand 
times is it possible to achieve anything except by labor, by ef- 



There are Americans who dream impossible things and make their dreams 
come true. (Courtesy of the World’s Work) 


fort, by serious purpose, and by the willingness to run risk.” 
Joseph Choate once said that he had known all the leading 
lawyers in both America and England for forty years, and that 
no two of these were alike in any respect except one—they 
strove like grim death for the object before them; ignored 
everything but attaining success by all the honorable means in 
their power. In other words, they worked as the pioneer worked 
—as if they were fighting against cold and hunger and isolation. 
Even the men and women whom we have called geniuses have 
been the hardest students and workers. Genius drove them like 
a relentless taskmaster. A noted Harvard professor once said: 







DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 59 

" Young people should realize that it matters not at all about 
genius, but that it is work—unremitting labor—that counts.” 
And Thomas Edison, one of the most tireless workers that the 
century has seen, said, "Genius is made up of 1 per cent inspira¬ 
tion and 99 per cent perspiration.” 

17 . All Useful Men have been Hard Workers. It is not only 
the Roosevelts and Edisons, however, who believe in hard 
work. For thirty-three years one of the humble employees in 


© Keystone View Co. 

Much of the nation’s work must be done under conditions that make ease 
and comfort impossible. These men are at work on a tunnel under the 
Hudson River 

a Los Angeles bank who guarded the door of the president’s 
room and carried bank funds through the streets had the record 
of never being late and never being short a penny. At his death 
the newspaper reported: "Bank presidents and other figures in 
the city’s financial circles attended the funeral and mingled 
costly floral gifts with the humbler tributes of his friends.” It 
is men like the bank attendant who are the backbone of the 
nation, for, as ex-President Wilson said, "A nation is as great, 
and only as great, as her rank and file.” The rank and file of 
America’s workers are not looking for a substitute for work. 










6o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


18 . Hard Work builds Character. In India today one may 
see before the gate of almost any city men testing their powers 
of endurance in strange ways. Often a man will lie for hours 
stretched on the ground, one bony arm held rigidly upright 
while he prays silently. He is not begging; he is merely proving 
his endurance, hoping thereby to gain strength of character. 
Men have been known to hold their arms above their heads 
until the flesh gradually withered. Even in the United States, 
in an isolated section of one of our Western states, as late as 
1920 there were men belonging to a religious order known as 
the Penitentes who, at Easter time, stripped themselves and 
flogged their flesh with barbed whips. They did this voluntarily 
and with dignity and simplicity, hoping thus to prove their 
courage and endurance. 

Most Americans, however, have learned that there is a 
better way of proving themselves—doing a hard day’s work in 
a spirit that is fine and courageous. In midsummer there are 
many days of excessive heat, yet the work of the world must 
go on. In winter many tasks must be performed in wind and 
sleet that only the strong of body and strong of mind can en¬ 
dure. The lighthouse inspectors, the coast-survey men, in all 
kinds of weather, must go to places that are never safe and in 
stormy weather are full of perils. Policemen, firemen, workers 
on high buildings, bridge builders, aviators, electrical workers, 
are only a few of the many workers who must be constantly 
daring, constantly patient. 

Persons whose daily tasks are carried out in dust and dirt 
and noise are surely having their characters tested. Those who 
became soured, discontented, and bitter have failed in the test. 
The day may come when every office and factory will be clean 
and attractive, but the time will never come when there will be 
no drudgery or monotonous tasks. President Eliot of Harvard 
University once said: 

The daily work in every calling gets to be so familiar 
that it may fairly be called monotonous. My occupation, 
for instance, offers, I believe, more variety than that of 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 61 


most professional men; yet I should say that nine tenths 
of my work, from day to day, was routine work, present¬ 
ing no more novelty or fresh interests to me than the work 
of a carpenter or blacksmith. 

Work is work and has its discomforts whether it is acting as 
president of a college or feeding a loom in a cotton factory. 
The chief differences 
are not in the work but 
in the workers ; in what 
they put into the work 
and what they get out 
of it. 

19 . HardWorkmakes 
Beautiful Things Pos¬ 
sible. Americans have 
learned that work is 
good because of what 
it accomplishes. Out¬ 
side of nature all the 
beautiful things are the 
product of long hours 
of work. In the Lux¬ 
embourg Gallery in 
Paris is a statue called 
"Amor Caritas,” carved 
by the American sculp¬ 
tor Saint Gaudens, and 
said by some critics to 
be the most beautiful 
thing in the gallery. In Lincoln Park, Chicago, stands a bronze 
statue of Abraham Lincoln—Lincoln as he might have looked 
on the day at Gettysburg when he stood on the hill by the 
new-made graves of American soldiers and said the immor¬ 
tal words known to every American student. This statue is 
also the work of the sculptor Saint Gaudens. And in the Rock 
Creek Cemetery in Washington, D. C., almost hidden among the 



© E. L. Crandall 

Years of training and hard work made this 
statue by Saint Gaudens possible 




62 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


great spreading trees, is another of Saint Gaudens’s statues—a 
woman seated and quietly thinking, a heavy drapery leaving 
only the face and one strong, beautiful hand exposed. Men 
and women have traveled across the continent to look at this 
face, so full of beauty that someone has named it the Peace 
of God. 

It was only by diligent, plodding work—the same kind of 
persistent work that the farmer, the houseworker, the mill 
operative, knows so well—that these statues came from Saint 
Gaudens’s hand. Since it was work that made these beautiful 
things, surely the work itself can be called beautiful. Although 
Saint Gaudens had genius, yet without his willingness to work, 
his genius would have been wasted. He was the son of poor 
parents, and when a mere boy was apprenticed to a New York 
cameo-cutter. Later, when he went to Paris to study, he had to 
work at his trade of cameo-cutting half of each day in order to 
support himself while studying. He called his apprenticeship 
"one of the most fortunate things that ever happened to me,” 
and said that much of his success in his art was due to the hard, 
faithful work that he gave to his employers as a boy. 

20 . Hard Work brings Happiness. No man or woman who 
has been an idler or a shirker has ever received the homage of 
others. The faces that we go to the art museum to study, the 
faces that we look at a second time on the streets, are those of 
men and women who have accomplished difficult things, who 
have been the hardest workers. For the spirit that makes men 
work eagerly and gladly brings strength and beauty to their 
faces. A man who once rode in a locomotive with an aged en¬ 
gineer said that in the most tense moments of the swift night 
journey through snowdrifts and in the face of biting winds, 
there was a "radiance shining through the wrinkles of the 
engineer’s face that almost made the darkness light about him.” 
It was the joy of doing a hard task well that made the engineer’s 
face radiant midst soot, noise, darkness, and storm. When the 
faces of our workers get sullen and weary, then America’s future 
will be in peril. 


DIFFERENT KINDS OF WORKERS IN AMERICA 63 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Before studying any one part of this chapter, read it through as 
a whole. Make an outline of it, then write a brief paragraph of summary. 

2 . When you see the words "United States,” "England,” "France,” 
what do you think of first ? What does the sentence "The United States 
is a powerful nation” suggest to you? With what you learned in 
Chapter II in mind, explain what the people have done to make the 
United States powerful. 

3 . Can you explain how the fact that the United States is a very 
rich country might keep some unthinking people from working hard? 
It is more difficult to keep prosperity than to gain it. Think of several 
reasons why this is so. 

4 . Make a list of the different kinds of workers summarized in this 
chapter. Tell exactly how each kind is changing the United States for 
better or for worse. 

5. Tramps usually belong to one of these groups: (1) the feeble¬ 
minded; (2) those who have served short jail terms and are unsuccess¬ 
ful in finding work when they are released; (3) those who have so 
little education that they are unfitted for work that wifi yield a suffi¬ 
cient wage ; (4) those who dislike hard work; (5) those who have been 
unjustly treated by an employer and decide that it is impossible to get 
a square deal. Discuss ways of helping each of these groups. 

6. How does your community deal with tramps and the homeless 
people ? Does your state have any laws dealing with such cases ? 

7 . Every person has to live on either the present work or the past 
work of himself or other persons. Show that the idle rich are as harmful 
to the nation as the idle poor. 

8. Many persons who have large wealth must spend most of their 
time caring for it, else it will be wasted. Show that if well done this 
is the kind of work that is valuable to the community. 

9 . Every year more and more handicapped persons find opportuni¬ 
ties for work. How do the blind, crippled, or otherwise disabled persons 
of your community help support themselves ? Why are they never to 
be pitied for working ? What does it tell you about our blinded soldiers 
that although each one gets $140 a month from the government, most of 
them have been eager to learn to do some useful work ? 

10 . What is the difference between idleness and leisure ? between rest 
and idleness ? In what ways will school and college years help prepare 
a person to use leisure profitably ? 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


64 

11 . What do you think are the most profitable ways in which to spend 
the leisure that you now have ? Find out how several of the successful 
people of your community spend their leisure. Remember that for many 
persons a change of work is all the leisure they want. 

12. If all the money, houses, and other property of the rich were 
destroyed or seized by the poor, in a year’s time most of the poor would 
again be poor. Can you tell why ? 

13. Compare the plan of work which the Pilgrims had with that of 
the Russians. Tell why such a plan as Bolshevism must always fail. 

14. Are there any communities in your state conducted by private 
organizations which require each person to share what he makes or 
earns with the others. Are they successful. Why ? 

15. Make a list of six Americans of whom you are proud, and find 
out what kind of workers they were. What did they accomplish ? Is 
“there any person whom you admire greatly who was an idler ? 

16. Physicians say that hard work is one of the best means of building 
up health. Can you give several reasons why this is so ? What is the 
difference between hard work and overwork? 

17. What do you mean by character ? Explain how hard work makes 
sturdy character. 

18. No good work is ever easy. A person by long practice may be¬ 
come so expert at painting pictures, playing the violin, using the type¬ 
writer, that the work may seem easy. Prove that this is not so by 
finding out how some successful singer, artist, or stenographer became 
proficient. 

19. What are the most beautiful things in your community ? in your 
home ? Find out how much hard work went into the making of these. 

20. For a week make a special study of the faces of the people you 
see on the street, in cars, and elsewhere. How many of the happy faces 
do you think belong to persons who do no work or easy work ? 

21. Study the faces of the men and women who are shown in your 
textbooks of history and in the magazines and newspapers. Find out 
about the work life of the person whose face most attracts you. 


CHAPTER IV 


SOMETHING ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION CALLED GOVERN¬ 
MENT THAT HELPS THE WORK LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 

1 . Work-Life Side of Government. As we have already seen, 
our government is merely the united efforts of the people to 
accomplish together what it is difficult and wasteful and often 
impossible for them to do singly. Part of the things the people 
do by means of government are concerned with work life and a 
part with home life. In this chapter we shall discuss briefly 
some of the ways in which government aids work life. 

2 . Early Work Contracts. Because history lays so much 
stress on the Mayfloiver compact, we forget that in July, 1620, 
some months before a ship was chartered to bring the Pilgrims 
to the new world, a business contract between the men who 
were financing the undertaking and those who were actually 
coming to America had been drawn up and signed. This con¬ 
tract has nothing to say about religion, education, or the many 
other things that one might have expected. It deals only with 
the method by which work life was to be regulated, as the 
following quotations show: 

Anno 1620, July 1. 

1. The adventurers and planters do agree that every 
person that goeth being aged 16 years and upward be rated 
at 10 li, and 10 pounds to be accounted a single share. . . . 

3. The persons transported and the adventurers shall 
continue their joint stock and partnership together the 
space of 7 years (except some unexpected impediment do 
cause the whole company to agree otherwise) during which 
time all profits and benefits that are got by trade, traffic, 
trucking, working, fishing, or any other means, of any per¬ 
son or persons remain still in the common stock until the 
division. 


65 


66 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


4 . That at their coming there they shall choose out such 
a number of fit persons as may furnish their ships and 
boats for fishing upon the sea; employing the rest in their 
several faculties upon the land; as building houses, tilling 
and planting the ground, and making such commodities as 
shall be most useful for the colony. 

Men must attend to the getting of food, drink, and shelter 
before they can think of schoolhouses and the comforts of life. 
That is why early government so largely consisted of agree¬ 
ments like the above and of laws dealing with the simplest kind 
of work conditions. 

3. How the Government of the Colonists centered in Work 
Life. In the preceding chapter we have seen how, before two 
years were over, the Pilgrim colony found it necessary to alter 
their agreement about sharing the products of their work, be¬ 
cause there were so many slackers among them. The change 
they made was equivalent to an amendment in our state and 
national constitutions. Many other changes had to be made 
from time to time to deal with new conditions. As early as 1631 
legal money was provided for by law in the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony, corn being constituted "a legal tender at the mar¬ 
ket price, except money or beaver be expressly named.” The 
next year to give further assistance to farmers and merchants 
the lawmakers "ordered that there should be a market kept at 
Boston upon every Thursday, the fifth day of the week.” 

The work life grew by leaps and bounds, and government 
changed to keep pace with the needs of the colonists. By 1677 
the first regular post office was established by the legislature, 
and by 1715 the first lighthouse on the North American conti¬ 
nent was built. In 1769 the legislature was making laws about 
such minor matters connected with work life as the following: 

Each Town where Shingles are made and sold, shall 
choose, in March annually, a Surveyor of Shingles and 
Clapboards, to be under Oath; who shall be allowed by 
the Burger six pence per Thousand for surveying, etc. 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


67 


No Dwelling House, Shope, Warehouse, Barn, Stable, or 
any other Housing of more than Eight Feet long or Broad, 
and seven Feet high, shall be set up in Boston, but of Stone 
or Brick, and covered with Slate or Tile; unless in particu¬ 
lar Cases where necessity requires, being so judged and 
signified in Writing under the Hands of the Justices and 
Selectmen of said Town. 

Bricks shall not be less than 
9 Inches long 
4 i Inches broad 
2 -\ Inches thick 

In spite of the success of the colonists in America, they were 
not allowed to make all their laws for themselves. Those in 
power in England still believed in the divine right of kings and 
nobility to help themselves to the hard work of others, and of 
course the only way that the nobility of England could profit 
by the hard work of the colonists was to tax them and so to 
regulate their commerce that it would pass through English 
ports. It was not, however, until these laws became oppressive 
and interfered with the freedom of the people in America to 
develop their work life as their needs required that serious 
trouble resulted. 

4. How the Colonists came to make a Constitution. The 
Revolutionary War was the climax which left the people free 
to plan their life without interference from England. Since 
the separate agreements or contracts which the different colo¬ 
nies had had with England were canceled by the war, they 
found it necessary to draw up an agreement among themselves 
which we call the Constitution. This one agreement took the 
place of the several agreements, issued in the form of charters, 
that the colonies had made with England. The Constitution 
was not a strange thing but a very brave one. The people were 
substituting for the powerful protection of England the united 
but uncertain protection of thirteen little colonies. Of course 
each colony felt able and expected to look after its own work 
life and home life in most respects, just as it had been doing for 


68 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



a hundred years or more. But there were many things that 
no colony could accomplish alone. England had furnished 
troops to help fight Indians, a navy to protect merchant ves¬ 
sels on the sea, money with which to open up the pioneer 
country farther west. After the Revolutionary War the Ameri¬ 
can people still needed 
help in fighting In¬ 
dians, still needed pro¬ 
tection on the seas, 
still needed money 
with which to open up 
frontier country. All 
these and other kinds 
of help no one colony 
could adequately sup¬ 
ply itself. At the con¬ 
stitutional convention 
in Philadelphia they 
agreed to obtain this 
needed help by unit¬ 
ing their forces. Thus 
the new little nation 
of the United States 
was born to help the 
thirteen colony states 
do together what they 
could inadequately do 
by themselves, and to 
deal with matters of 
dispute between the states. The Constitution was in reality 
a charter which the people of America drew up and granted 
themselves. 

5. How the Constitution affects the Work Life of the Nation. 

The Constitution as it was originally made and as it still stands, 
gives to Congress the following powers that directly affect the 
work life of the nation: 


© E. L. Crandall 

The Capitol expresses the power and dignity of 
the national government 




GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


69 


1. To coin and regulate the value of money. 

2. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities 
and current coin of the United States. 

3. To fix the standards of weights and measures. 

4. To establish post offices and post roads. 

5. To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the 
states. 

6. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by copyright 
and patent. 

7. To establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies through¬ 
out the United States. 

8. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises. 

9. To borrow money on the credit of the United States. 

In addition to these provisions two later amendments also 
directly affect the work life of the nation: 

10. Taxing incomes. 

11. Prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. 

6 . The National Government coins Money and regulates its 
Value. How vitally these powers which the states give to the 
nation affect the kind and amount of bread and butter and 
cake that each person has can be seen with a little thought. 
If the hard work of a person is to get him the things he needs 
and wants, he must be able to turn his work into something 
that farmers, grocers, piano sellers, clothing dealers, will accept. 
Every government has a system whereby a person can sell his 
labor or the products of his labor for money, which everybody 
will accept in payment for goods or services. 

It is this important service that the Constitution requires 
the government to do for all the people of the United States 
through the Treasury Department. It coins money from gold, 
silver, nickel, copper, and puts upon the coins the official 
stamp of the nation. The exact size and weight of each coin 
have been prescribed by law. One should understand, however, 
that the government has no gold or silver of its own to coin. 
The minerals used in making money are mined by individuals, 
who either own or lease the land in which the minerals are 


7 o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


found. The United States Treasury vaults are full of gold and 
silver which belong to the government, but it is only what is 
collected from the people in taxes to use in paying its bills. It 
is the people who own the money. As a further convenience 
to the people the national government issues paper certificates 
for its silver dollars and gold pieces, which can be carried about 
more easily and safely than coins. So important is the money 
part of the nation that almost the severest penalties inflicted by 
the national government for any crime are visited on counter¬ 
feiters. 

7 . The National Government fixes the Standards of Weights 
and Measures. Less important but of great value to the people 
is the service that the Constitution permits the government to 
perform in fixing the standards of weights and measures. Just 
as a dollar is not one thing in Maine and another in California, 
so a pound is a pound, an inch an inch, a yard a yard, the whole 
nation over. Only in a few cases has Congress passed laws 
making it compulsory for all the people to use specified meas¬ 
urements. But the government has adopted standards for its 
own official use, and the people have found it wise to adopt 
these also. The whole trading life of the people would be con¬ 
stantly out of order if the government did not perform this 
service for the people. If each business firm could call a 
pound as many ounces as it pleased, if a yard could be either 
thirty inches or thirty-six, buying and selling would be an 
uncertain matter. But the people today have as much security 
in buying goods as they have in using the money which the 
government issues. 

8 . The National Government establishes Post Offices. Even 
with official money and official standards by which to buy and 
sell goods, the people could not develop an extensive work life 
unless they were able to buy and sell easily and quickly. The 
principal way in which the government helps out in this respect 
is through its post-office department. The establishment of 
post offices means that people in any part of the nation can 
readily get into communication with every other part and thus 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 71 

arrange for the buying and selling of commodities. Today 
much important business is transacted by telegraph, telephone, 
and wireless, but every mail is crowded with letters containing 
orders for goods, checks in payment for goods, contracts, ad¬ 
vertisements, agreements, bills of lading, and many other 
papers that hasten the pace of work life and add to the pros¬ 
perity of every section. 

9. The National Government regulates Commerce among 
the States. Letters and newspapers have little value unless they 
can reach their destination quickly. A surplus of wheat in 
one section and potatoes in another will be disaster instead of 
prosperity unless these can be readily transported to places 
where there is no supply. Transportation, then, is as important 
as mail service. The United States government is not a builder 
or manager of railroads or of ships. It was little groups of 
private individuals that built the network of railroads and the 
fleets of ships that solved the problem of quick prosperity for 
the whole nation. But the national government at different 
times has granted loans of money to shipbuilders, and in many 
cases has given the railroads large areas of land over which to 
lay their tracks. It also gave military protection to the workers 
when laying out the roadbeds through unsettled territory. 

The nation no longer gives land for building railroads, and 
it provides military protection only in case of emergency, 
such as a strike of railroad employees which results in riots. 
But it does an important service by requiring railroads to trans¬ 
port mails and parcel post at reasonable rates and making it 
legal for express companies to make contracts with railroads 
for the conveying of articles on passenger trains. Almost as 
important a service is that of supervising the rates, schedules, 
and safety devices of trains and steamboats. Thus the nation 
has its hand in all that is essential for making safe and rapid 
communication possible in every part of the United States. 

10. The National Government regulates Commerce with 
Foreign Nations. Vital as is this supervision of transportation 
within the nation, equally important is that of regulating com- 


72 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


merce with foreign nations. It is what we sell to foreign nations 
that enables us to buy so many of the things that we need 
and want—such things as potash to fertilize our worn-out soil, 
or tea, coffee, sugar, to add pleasure to our dinner tables. 
Trade treaties made by the State Department have opened the 
ports of the world to our ships. It is by means of treaties and 
through laws passed by Congress that it has been determined 
what a gold dollar of our money equals in the gold of other 
countries, which prevents endless disputes between American 
traders and foreign countries. It is by means of tariff duties 
laid by Congress and collected by the Treasury Department 
that foreign goods which would injure American industry are 
kept out of the country. 

11. The National Government encourages Inventors and Au¬ 
thors. There would be less commerce for the national govern¬ 
ment to regulate, and less prosperity in the nation, if it were 
not for the provision of the Constitution that Congress be em¬ 
powered "to promote progress of science and useful arts by 
copyright and patent.” It is the patent protection given by 
the United States to inventors that has encouraged manufac¬ 
turers to develop their vast factory system. Because the govern¬ 
ment guarantees an inventor the sole possession of his invention 
for a term of years, he can confidently sell his rights to some 
manufacturer who will use it in extending an industry or start¬ 
ing a new one. Government guaranty of ownership is neces¬ 
sary to prevent imitators from selling the same device and thus 
making it difficult for any one manufacturer to use it profitably. 
The inventors and the patent office of the Department of the 
Interior have done much for our industrial prosperity. 

By giving books, magazines, and newspapers the same kind 
of protection that has been given invention—by what is called 
copyright—the government has benefited every occupation and 
every home. Without public schools, colleges, professional and 
technical schools, there would not be enough workers trained to 
do the nation’s difficult work. But without inexpensive text¬ 
books there could be no great system of schools, for it is by the 



_ m 
X ^ 
c O 

^ IS 


a 

4; 

t/1 

O 


CL) 

43 

S-. 
<D 
+-> 
-♦—t 

cZ 

-4-> 

3* 

43 

c/i 


bo 

c 

• H 

£ 

1 a3 

>-4 

T3 

.a -2 

H 3 
o 
• 42 
>% ctf 

U CD 
bXD 

CZ »r-H 
OJ M 

>- 42 

bX) 

rt 

D 2 

42 5 


O 

£3 


c3 

M 

CD 

43 


P «+H 
O O 

£ - 
o ~g 

bX) > 
o3 o3 

CJ 

• rH w 

43 ~ 

u 3 

—. CD 

5 So 
S - ^ 

C3 rr 

u ts 

^ 43 

g .ts 
.2 £ 
cZ 

£3 >% 
o3 

(D -rt 

43 

w >* 

_, m 

.£ ^ 

42 

T3 


c3 

C3 

o 


D 
c/) 
in 

a 

Cu 

u 

in <u 
£ > 
4 p* 


(D 

43 


33 

O 

43 


O 

bX) 

o3 

u 

• rH 

43 

CJ 


.33 D 

£5 


D 

bX) 

}-i 

c3 

42 

D 

44 

ctf 

M-t 

o 

D 

bX) 

cci 

a 

o3 

a 








COMMUNITY CIVICS 


74 

help of textbooks that students learn the facts of chemistry, 
electricity, and all the trades and professions. If there were no 
copyright protection, that is, if anyone who desired could re¬ 
print the books of another, authors and their publishers would 
be unwilling to invest their time and money in the making of 
the best books. 

Although millions of books are printed in the United States 
every year, these are only a small part of the printed matter 
that the people read. Newspapers and magazines are indispen¬ 
sable to modern life. Our country has such vast distances that 
unless the people of any section could know every day what 
the president and Congress were doing, what was happening in 
other states, the nation would soon be divided into many sec¬ 
tions that were strange to each other. Every farmer and busi¬ 
ness man depends on each day’s news to guide him in deciding 
when to buy goods and when to sell. Without copyright the 
magazines and newspapers could not be published, for the ex¬ 
pense of collecting news and articles is so great that without 
protection a profitable business could not be built up. 

12. The National Government requires Uniform Laws in 
Bankruptcy. Necessary to the smooth running of business and 
work life is the provision in the Constitution that Congress shall 
see to it that there are uniform laws on bankruptcy throughout 
the United States. All buying and selling is done easily and 
quickly because it is the law of the land that an order for 
goods is a contract that is binding. But unfortunately there 
are enough dishonest and incompetent persons in the nation to 
tangle things up badly by failing to keep their promises. There 
are also men whom circumstances beyond their control force 
to go back on their promises. To protect those who will lose 
money as the result of the failure of such persons to keep their 
promises, the national government has passed what are called 
bankruptcy laws. These laws require persons who cannot pay 
their debts to appear in court, to prove that they cannot pay 
and to show what property they own. The court decides what 
shall be done in each case. 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


75 


13. The National Government aids Work Life by prohibiting 
the Manufacture and Sale of Intoxicating Liquors. The pro¬ 
hibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors is 
not a part of the Constitution that directly aids the work life 
of the nation. But it has been proved that intoxicating liquor 
turns good workers into poor workers, causes many accidents, 
increases many diseases. Railroads and many manufacturers had 
for years barred from their employ all workers who used liquor; 
so when, in 1919 , the amendment was added to the Constitution 
the nation was only doing what the people had already proved 
would be for the good of all workers. The nation has also bene¬ 
fited by the turning of breweries, saloons, and the money in¬ 
vested in these into factories and stores making and selling 
useful articles. 

14. The National Government can obtain Money through 
Taxes and Loans. In order to give the people the kinds of as¬ 
sistance in their work life that are enumerated above—estab¬ 
lishing post offices, granting patents, regulating commerce, 
enforcingtheprohibitionlaw—the government must have money. 
If the makers of the Constitution had given Congress all the 
powers enumerated above and had neglected to give it power 
to raise money with which to do these things, then the Consti¬ 
tution would have been a mere piece of paper. Things do not 
do themselves. Presidents, postmasters, stenographers, must be 
paid. And so the Constitution gave a great but an indispensable 
power to Congress: "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, 
and excises.’’ 

It is not always possible to have available at any one 
time enough tax money to pay all the government’s necessary 
bills. Therefore the Constitution also gave Congress power "to 
borrow on the credit of the United States” the money necessary 
to meet all its payments. It borrows from the people through 
the Treasury Department and gives them its note in the form 
of bonds. These bonds really stand for future taxes; that is, 
money which the nation will collect in the succeeding months 
and years. 


76 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


15 . Protection the Most Important Help that Government 
provides. We have said that government is merely an organ¬ 
ization of many parts which the people have built up to help 
them in their work life and home life. But when we read the 
history of the United States we find that the first and most im¬ 
portant task of government has been protection—protecting the 
lives and property of the people from other nations, from In¬ 
dians, from wild animals, from anarchists and other criminals. 
In some sections of the Northwest the earliest assemblies of the 
pioneers were called "Wolf Meetings,” because the thing that 
brought them together was the desire to find some way of pro¬ 
tecting their herds from wolves. In the winter of 1842-1843 
settlers’ herds had been so often attacked that a general meet¬ 
ing was held to vote funds for bounties on skins of wild animals 
and to take steps for the civil and military protection of the 
colony. 

The organization which these Northwest pioneers formed 
gave them the necessary protection from Indians and wild 
animals, but they soon found that they had other enemies. 
England through its Hudson Bay Company claimed much of 
the territory and so interfered with the American traders and 
settlers that there were almost continuous quarrels. There were 
also lawless people among their own number who refused to re¬ 
spect the property of others. Within a few years, therefore, they 
passed the following resolutions: 

To the Honorable the Senate and House 0) Representatives 
of the United States of America in Congress assembled: 

We, the undersigned, settlers south of the Columbia 
River, beg leave respectfully to represent to your honorable 
body: 

As has been before represented to your honorable body, 
we consider ourselves citizens of the United States, and 
acknowledge the right of the United States to extend its 
jurisdiction over us; and the object of the present memo¬ 
rial is to ask that the protection of the United States may 
be extended to us as soon as possible. . . . 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


77 



16 . How Government protects Private Property. The reason 
that so many pages of the history of the early years of our 
nation are occupied with accounts of fighting is that in those 
days government was performing its first and most important 
duty. This was a new na¬ 
tion on a new continent, 
and there were many 
claimants for this prop¬ 
erty and many forces 
seeking its destruction. 

Today there is less work 
for guns and warships, 
because outside nations 
have accepted the fact 
that the land and build¬ 
ings of the forty-eight 
states belong to the peo¬ 
ple of the United States. 

But we still need to be 
ready to protect goods 
bought from or sold to 
other countries, ships that 
carry these goods, build¬ 
ings in other countries, 
property of every kind in 
Alaska, the Philippines, 
and our other possessions. 

But while in the early 
days almost all this work 
of protection had to be 
done by the army and navy, today we have other government 
helps in accomplishing this, so that the pages of history are 
not so full of fighting. Our State Department is our chief help 
in protecting America. It does its work by making agree¬ 
ments, called treaties, with other countries and by means of 
correspondence and personal interviews with the representa- 


© Keystone View Co. 

Guarding the New York post office. The 
mails are valuable private property which 
the government at times has to protect 
with guns 






















COMMUNITY CIVICS 


78 

tives of foreign governments. Whenever any of our people or 
our property is in danger, this department, through its ambas¬ 
sadors, does everything possible to protect them without using 
force. For nearly three years our State Department tried to 
protect American lives and property from German ruthlessness, 
and only when peaceful methods failed were the army and 
navy called on. For each time that the State Department has 
failed, there have been hundreds of times it has succeeded. 

The basis of all work life and home life is private property. 
If private property is not protected all the other laws are use¬ 
less. It would be a waste of time and money for a community 
to provide an expensive sewage system, bring drinking-water 
several hundred miles, turn aside rivers to water dry plains, 
build great libraries and hire expert librarians to help the 
people, if the homes and places of work for which these expen¬ 
sive improvements were made might at any time be destroyed 
by the lawless or seized by another nation. 

17 . The Constitution Effective only through Laws passed by 
Congress. A reading of the Constitution will show that while 
it gave Congress power to do the things listed above, it gave no 
instructions as to how they should be accomplished. Therefore, 
when Congress met in 1789 its most important work was to make 
laws to carry out the requirements of the Constitution. It first 
passed laws establishing these departments to assist the presi¬ 
dent : 

Department of Foreign Affairs (now called Department of State). 

Department of the Treasury. 

Department of War (which included naval as well as military affairs). 

At the head of each of these was to be a secretary appointed 
by the president and responsible to him. Later other depart¬ 
ments were established by Congress as follows: 

Department of the Navy in 1798. 

Department of the Post Office in 1829. 

Department of the Interior in 1849. 

Department of Justice in 1870. 

Department of Agriculture in 1889. 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


79 


Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903 (abolished in 1913). 
Department of Commerce in 1913. 

Department of Labor in 1913. 

Every year Congress passes laws which add to or change the 
duties of these different departments. 

18 . The Principal Ways in which the National Government 
helps the Work Life of the People. In order to help keep in 
mind how great a service the national government does for the 
work life of the people, we summarize here the different depart¬ 
ments and mention their most important duties concerned with 
work life: 

Department of State: 

Making trade treaties with other countries. 

Sending consuls to all the important ports and trade centers of the 
world to get information about trade opportunities and to see that 
our interests are protected. 

Giving protection to private individuals who go into foreign coun¬ 
tries to buy and to sell. 

Giving protection to American property in foreign countries. 

Department of the Treasury: 

Coining money; issuing paper currency. 

Collecting duties on foreign goods and taxes laid by Congress. 
Distributing government funds to different national and Federal Re¬ 
serve banks; regulating national banks. 

Distributing Federal Farm Loan funds. 

Maintaining a coast guard and other helps to navigation. 
Investigating health conditions and maintaining quarantine stations. 

Department of War: 

Dredging harbors and rivers to keep them open to navigation. 
Furnishing troops whenever necessary to protect workers and to pro¬ 
tect property. 

Department of the Navy: 

Preparing ocean charts for use of sea captains. 

Supplying ’'standard time” from the Naval Observatory. 

Conducting coast radio service for ocean-going vessels. 

Protecting shipping whenever in danger of attack. 

Protecting cables and cable stations. 


8 o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Department of the Post Office : 

Making treaties with foreign countries to secure for American citizens 
the same mail privileges abroad as at home. 

Collecting mail in every part of the nation and sending it to every 
part of the world. 

Sending money by means of money orders. 

Sending goods by means of parcel post. 

Acting as savings bank by means of its postal-savings department. 

Protecting the people against fraudulent schemes to make money by 
forbidding the use of the mails to such schemes. 

Department of the Interior: 

Protecting timber and water supply of public lands. 

Surveying streams and coal lands. 

Helping reclaim desert and swamp lands. 

Giving, leasing, and selling government land to private individuals. 

Encouraging vocational education. 

Issuing patents and copyrights. 

Department of Justice: 

Assisting in enforcing the prohibition and customs laws. 

Preventing trusts, enforcing the decisions of the Interstate Com¬ 
merce Commission and other federal commissions. 

Determining through the Supreme Court the validity of laws affect¬ 
ing work life. 

Department of Agriculture: 

Supplying farmers, shipping companies, and others with weather 
forecasts. 

Furnishing to farmers in all parts of the country information about 
soils, crops, diseases, seeds, opportunities for marketing. 

Issuing crop estimates. 

Searching the world over for grasses, fruits, and vegetables that will 
thrive on American soil. 

Assisting the states and counties in building roads. 

Supplying information about cooperative markets and special oppor¬ 
tunities for selling products. 

Protecting the people against impure foods. 

Department of Commerce: 

Gathering and giving out information in regard to trade conditions 
in the United States and foreign countries. 



GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 81 

Furnishing valuable information about occupations and resources 
through census reports. 

Determining standards of weights and measures, also standards of 
quality (for example, grades of cotton). 

Supervising fisheries along the coast and in tide rivers. 


© Brown Bros. 

The laws that Congress and the states are making today will affect the nation’s 
children when they are workers 

Assisting shipping by means of lighthouses, buoys, etc., supplying 
mariners with coast charts, inspecting vessels to see that they are 
seaworthy. 

Department of Labor: 

Dealing with immigrants: sending back those likely not to become 
workers and helping distribute the others where they are most 
needed. 

Supplying information about chances for employment. 

Arranging for special temporary importation of foreign workers to 
help on a definite piece of work. 

Furnishing officials to help settle labor disputes. 









82 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


19 . The President and the Ten Departments carry out the 
Laws. Since our government now has only ten separate depart¬ 
ments it is clear that very little of the time of Congress has 
been spent in making these, yet Congress meets once every year 
and often twice a year to make new laws or revise or repeal old 
ones. In making these laws Congress is adding to the duties of 
the president and these departments, for every law has to be 
assigned either to the president personally, or to one of the ten 
departments (which are subdivided into many bureaus and 
divisions), to be carried out. 

20 . Special Commissions. At times, however, instead of as¬ 
signing a new law to one of the regular departments, Congress 
specifies that a special board or commission shall be appointed 
to attend to it. Some of these commissions are temporary, like 
the Coal Commission of 1922, created to make an investigation 
and to report on the coal situation, and then to dissolve. Others 
are permanent, like the Interstate Commerce Commission and 
the Railway Labor Board. Congress has power to create a new 
department or a new commission whenever conditions seem 
to warrant it. 

21 . A Large Part of Government seems to have No Con¬ 
nection with Work Life. A large part of the Constitution seems 
to have nothing to do with either work life or home life. 
Explaining how to elect a president, how courts shall be estab¬ 
lished, and similar details occupy more space in the Constitu¬ 
tion than the matters referred to above. But these paragraphs 
are merely specifications for carrying out the parts that we 
have just been discussing. It is the same with the laws passed 
by Congress and the state legislatures: for every law that deals 
directly with the life of the people there must be specifications 
as to how it shall be enforced and how the necessary officials 
shall be chosen and paid. 

Since every year new laws are passed by Congress, the states, 
and cities and towns, it is no wonder that government seems 
complicated. But every part of a constitution, every law, and 
every government official comes under one of these heads: 



GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 83 

1. Directly helping the people with their work life. 

2. Indirectly helping the people with their work life. 

3. Directly helping the people with home life. 

4. Indirectly helping the people with home life. 

5. Making or operating the machinery necessary to accomplish 1-4. 

22 . The State’s Part in the Work Life of the People. All 

matters connected with the work life of the people not provided 


. - © Keystone View Co. 

It was state laws that made it possible for New York City to bring its 
drinking-water from the Catskill Mountains 

for in the national Constitution were left to the states. Each 
state has made for itself a constitution. From time to time the 
constitutions of the states, like that of the nation, have had to 
be amended to make them more helpful in the rapidly changing 
work life; and, like Congress, each state legislature makes new 
laws and amends old ones, supplementing the constitution. To 
realize how important the state is we need to remember that 
practically all the power that the county, town, or city has is 




84 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


given it by the state. That is, the people of the state as a whole 
give to the group of people making up a county, town, or city 
all the powers they have as an official community. Therefore, 
to understand the community one must first understand the 
state. The following news item, which appeared in a local news¬ 
paper of Massachusetts, is only one illustration of the way in 
which a community in some states has to turn to the state 
legislature for power to do a special thing. 

WANTS NEW CITY HALL 

Mayor George R. Beal, heading a delegation 
of Waltham city officials, appeared before the 
legislative committee on municipal finance to¬ 
day, seeking authority to borrow $1,000,000 
outside of the debt limit for the erection of a 
new city hall, community building, junior high 
school, and branch library buildings. 

City Councilor George B. Willard said that 
the present city hall is an antiquated structure 
which was erected in 1827. "We have to put a 
sign on the building,” said Mr. Willard, "so that 
strangers passing through the city will know it 
is our municipal administration building.” 

An act of the 1919 session of the Alabama legislature is likewise 
an illustration of the extent of the power that lies in the state 
to control the affairs of communities: 

Be it enacted by the legislature of Alabama as follows: 

That the mayor of cities and towns in the state of 
Alabama having a population of not less than 10,000 nor 
more than 25,000, in counties having a population of not 
less than 100,000 . . . shall receive as compensation or 
salary not less than $1000 nor more than $3600, same to 
be affixed within these limits by the city council or other 
governing body thereof. 

23 . How the State gives the Community its Legal Power. 
In most states a community is not legally a town or city until 
it gets from the state a charter, which is merely a certificate 
stating that the people within a specified area are made a legal 
corporation with the power to do certain things. These certain 
things are named in the charter, and no town or city can offi¬ 
cially do anything not specified in this charter unless the legisla- 




GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 85 

ture later gives it special permission to do so. This special 
permission means a new law. In states with a large number of 
towns and cities the legislature has a great deal of this kind 
of work to do—making special laws to meet the needs of dif¬ 
ferent communities. In one year sixty-seven laws were passed 
by the legislature of Maryland affecting Baltimore alone. Often 
a town or city finds as the years pass that it is hampered by 
having to wait for the legislature to make the laws necessary to 
meet its needs. In such cases, if the community is enterprising 
it will ask the legislature to amend the old charter or to grant 
it a new one which will include many of the changes that would 
otherwise have to be granted by special laws. This saves the 
time of the legislature and gives the community a feeling of 
greater independence and pride. Some states have allowed 
their cities to frame their own charters, and in other states 
the legislature can make no change in a city charter unless it 
has first been referred to the people of that city. But even in 
these cases the power comes from the state: the state merely 
transfers this power to the cities. 

This dependence of the community on the state for power 
to do things is illustrated by the following rulings of the state 
examiner of Indiana in answer to questions raised by different 
communities: 

232. Visiting Nurse. Relative to the authority of a city 
to appropriate money to employ a visiting nurse, I beg to 
advise that I do not know of any authority authorizing a 
city to make an appropriation of money for such purpose, 
and in the absence of such authority none can legally be 
made. 

274. Flood Protection. Relative to flood protection 
measures that might be adopted by your town, I beg to 
advise that I do not find any authority to authorize the 
town board to expend any money in the general fund to 
clean up the banks of the stream in question. In 1915 
certain flood measures were passed, but none of them is 
sufficiently broad to enable your town to adopt the course 
suggested by you. 


86 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


307. Piano . If in the judgment of the town board it is 
necessary to buy a piano for the town hall in order to equip 
such hall in a manner to meet the demands of the munici¬ 
pality, in my opinion the board can purchase such an in¬ 
strument and pay for the same out of the general fund. 

Perhaps your community has secured a visiting nurse without 
having to ask the legislature to pass a special law. If so, this 

is because either the 
state has already issued 
to your community a 
charter giving it permis¬ 
sion to have such a 
nurse, or it has passed a 
general law allowing any 
community in the state 
to employ a nurse under 
certain conditions. 

It seems a little strange 
that in an emergency 
like the one referred to 
in 274 a community can¬ 
not officially act at once. 
There is good reason for 
this, irritating and inade¬ 
quate though it must of¬ 
ten prove. The people 
must be guarded against 
the hasty action of un¬ 
scrupulous or inefficient officials. Whenever dishonest or in¬ 
competent men are in office they can so spend or waste the 
people’s money that the prosperity of the whole community is 
affected. It is to make such wastefulness difficult that the state 
decides for what purposes towns and cities can spend money. 

24 . Protection One of the First Duties of the State. Just as 
protection is the first duty of the national government, so it is 
the first duty of state government. For this purpose each state 



© Am. Agr. Chem. Co. 


The nation’s cotton fields make many laws 
necessary 







GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


87 

has militia and both state and local police. In times of crisis if 
the state forces are insufficient to give adequate protection, the 
governor calls on the president for the help of the army; and 
when the nation is in such great peril that the army and navy 
cannot cope with it, then the president calls on the governors 
for the assistance of the state militia and, if the danger is great 
enough, on the private citizens of the state. 

25 . States differ greatly in their Needs. Neither the consti¬ 
tution nor the series of laws made by one state are exactly 
like those made by another. Different sections of the country 
differ so greatly in their work life that there could be no pros¬ 
perity for the nation unless each state gave its people the par¬ 
ticular help they needed. For instance, Montana has some of 
the finest wheat-producing land in the United States; therefore 
in 1913 the state legislature passed a law which created a 
"grain inspection” department, 

... to supervise the handling, inspecting, weighing and 
storage of grain; to establish necessary rules and regula¬ 
tions therefor, and for the management of the public ware¬ 
houses of the State . . .; to keep proper records of all the 
inspecting and weighing done into and out of the ware¬ 
houses licensed by law to do business in this State, . . . 
investigate all complaints of fraud or oppression in the 
grain trade and correct the same, so far as may be in his 
power. . . . 

Alabama has many laws dealing with cotton, which is one of 
the state’s most important crops. Because of the ravages of the 
boll weevil it has been necessary to take precautions to have 
only pure seed used, and therefore severe laws like the follow¬ 
ing have been passed: 

Sect. 9 . All persons in the traffic of seed cotton are re¬ 
quired to keep legibly written in a book which shall be 
open to the public inspection, the names of all persons 
from whom they purchase or receive by way of barter 
or exchange or traffic of any sort, any seed cotton, with 
the number of pounds and date of purchase. 



88 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

Iowa does not need to protect its people against poor seed 
cotton, but among many special laws for its workers it has one 
designed to help the pearl-button industry by providing for the 
opening and closing of certain streams in which mussels (from 
which the buttons are made) are found and by making rules as 
to how they shall be secured, even specifying what kind of im- 


© Keystone View Co. 

It was many cave-ins like this which made Pennsylvania’s mine-cave 
commission necessary 

plements shall be used. New Mexico has elaborate laws regu¬ 
lating the "casing of oil and gas wells and the mode of plugging 
the same when abandoned.” Pennsylvania has many special 
laws dealing with coal mining. The coal mines of the state ex¬ 
tend under farms, villages, and even cities, and at times there 
are cave-ins of the earth, wrecking houses and often injuring 
animals and persons. Therefore one of the state’s commissions 
is the "state anthracite mine-cave commission,” which has 
power to collect a tax from coal-mine owners and to spend this 
"for the prevention and elimination of danger to life, limb, and 






GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 89 

health by surface subsidence resulting from past or future 
anthracite coal mining.” 

Oregon, among its many interesting laws either controlling 
or adding to the efficiency of work life, has one to lessen the 
spread of weeds: 

The county court of each county may declare said county 
a weed-control district for the purpose of destroying such 
weeds and of preventing the seeding and spread of such 
other weeds and plants as the court may for the purposes 
of this act declare noxious. 

California recently passed a law providing for a special com¬ 
mission to study the most approved methods of cereal culture 
in order to increase the yield of cereals of the state and to 
increase the percentage of gluten in these cereals. Texas has 
a "live-stock sanitary commission,” whose duty it is to find 
ways of protecting the great live-stock wealth of the state from 
diseases. New York State has many laws dealing with canals, 
railroads, and its port. Two of the most important of these 
were the act making the use of state-owned canals free to 
all shippers and the act by which the states of New York and 
New Jersey pledged to each other "faithful cooperation in the 
future planning and development of the port of New York, 
holding in high trust for the benefit of the nation the special 
blessings and natural advantages thereof.” 

26. State Legislatures make Laws affecting Details of Every¬ 
day Living. Not all states have cotton fields, or mines, or canals 
and harbors, or valuable live stock, and therefore do not need 
the kind of special laws which the states just mentioned have, 
but every state has to do for its people some important special 
tasks that are concerned with their work life. Many a person 
has never realized how much government does to bring order¬ 
liness into his everyday affairs until he is reminded of some of 
the seemingly little things that have been attended to at the 
state capitol. As we saw on an earlier page, the national gov¬ 
ernment helps set standards of weights and measures to pre- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


90 

vent confusion in business life. Each state also passes many 
laws dealing with weights and measures. The person who com¬ 
fortably eats a well-cooked dinner of roast pork may not know 
or care that the legislature at his state capitol has probably 
had a hand in that meal by specifying the kind of barrel in 
which the pork should be packed, the kind of label that should 
be used, and many other details like the following: 

1. All barrels in which any pork or beef is repacked 
shall be of good, seasoned white oak or white ash staves 
and heading free from every defect. Each barrel shall con¬ 
tain 200 lbs. of beef or pork. . . . 

2. The barrel shall measure 17^ inches between the 
chimes and be 28 inches long, and hooped with 12 good 
hickory, white oak, or other substantial hoops. If made of 
ash staves it shall be hooped with at least 14 hoops. . . . 

The hoops shall be not less than f inch thick; and each 
stave or each edge at the bilge shall be not less than J inch 
thick when finished. . . . 


27 . All States have Some Needs in Common. There are cer¬ 
tain matters about which all states are concerned. Railroads, 
roads, bridges, telephone and telegraph, irrigation, sewage— 
these are a few of the things that closely affect the work life of 
every person in every state, and all states have laws dealing 
with them. Ohio, among other railroad laws, has one requiring 
trains to stop at stations of over three thousand inhabitants. 
North Carolina has a law requiring railroads to make connect¬ 
ing schedules. Texas has a law penalizing railroads for allowing 
Johnson grass or Russian thistle to go to seed on its property. 
Missouri and Kansas have laws making railroad companies re¬ 
sponsible for fires started from their locomotives. Probably 
every state has many laws dealing with 


street railways 
motor vehicles 
telegraphs 
telephones 
roads 


streams 

gas and electricity 

water supplies for towns and cities 

soil and crops 

timber 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


9i 


mineral resources 

manufacturing companies 

corporations 

transfer of property 

insurance companies 

banking 

building 

buying 

selling 


weights and measures 

physicians 

lawyers 

dentists 

workers in general 
special workers 
unemployment 
health conditions 
accidents 


_ 

In addition to the laws that come under these headings there 
are others dealing with almost every special feature of work life. 

28 . State Departments and Officials. On the kind of laws 
which the state has depend the kind and number of state de¬ 
partments and officials. For example, if a state passes a law 
requiring doctors, dentists, and nurses to pass a state examina¬ 
tion, it must have officials to see that this law is carried 
out. If a state has laws regulating the use of the water power 
of its streams, it must have a water-power commission or 
similar officials to attend to this. Since no two states have 
the same number and kinds of laws, no textbook can give a 
list of all the state laws or of all the state bureaus and depart¬ 
ments. But every civics class should have in its loose-leaf note¬ 
book the names of all its state departments and should watch 
the newspaper for news about changes in these or additions to 
the general list. 

29 . The Community the Most Important Part of the Nation. 

It is at first a bit disappointing to learn that the part of the 
nation that we know best and that seems to us so all-important 
—the community—is not mentioned in the Constitution. This 
is not so strange as it at first seems. Before there was a Consti¬ 
tution or a Congress, prosperous communities were scattered 
over the eastern part of the United States. As we have shown 
on preceding pages, these settlements made the necessary laws 
and appointed officials to do for them the things which they 
found it inconvenient or impossible to do for themselves. Long 
before there was a navy or a national government the colonists 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


92 


had built ships to send their produce to distant China and 
India and bring back silks, spices, china, and other comforts 
and luxuries. 

In the troublesome years that preceded the Declaration of 
Independence and the Revolutionary War, England tried to 
make many changes in the local governments of the colonies, 



It is state laws that regulate the building and use of grain elevators, and both 
state and national laws that make it possible for vessels safely to enter a port 
and take on a cargo 

and often temporarily succeeded. War came before the disputes 
with England could wreck the local and colonial governments 
that had been so slowly and carefully built up. Therefore 
when the Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia in 
1787 it did not have to make town and state governments, 
for these already existed; it had only to make a national gov¬ 
ernment. To make a national government it was necessary 
only to create the kind of organization that would do for all 
the people what was not already being satisfactorily done by 
the states and towns. 





GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 93 

No textbook could mention more than the smallest fraction 
of the activities of the communities of the United States nor of 
the different kinds of help that they secure through govern¬ 
ment. But there are certain things that most communities 
do through government, and the machinery for accomplishing 
these is much the same everywhere. Because the community 
is closer to most of us than the state or the nation we need to 
study it with special care, and shall give to it a whole chapter 
later. 

30 . The People and their Government. Sometimes the people 
get impatient and let themselves be deceived into believing that 
the government does not really represent the needs and wishes 
of the workers. Government, because it represents large numbers 
of people, can be changed only slowly, but whenever we look 
back we can see that it has changed slowly but surely as the 
people have wished it to change. Several years ago the depart¬ 
ment of labor in a Western state sent letters to thousands of 
the workers, asking this question, "What in your opinion should 
be done to improve your trade ? ” Here are a few of the answers: 

1. Prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor. 

2. State law for inspection of steam boilers. 

3. Especially close the saloons on Sunday so that the 
poor may save money. 

4. A compulsory-education law. 

5. Shorten the hours of labor from n to 10. 

6. Enact a ten-hour law that can be enforced. 

7. Do not pass any more laws until all those now exist¬ 
ing can be executed. 

8. A law which will get children out of the shop so that 
they may receive an education. 

9. Restriction of the use of machinery in all branches of 
labor. 

We already have a Federal amendment which prohibits the 
manufacture and sale of liquor. Every state now has a com¬ 
pulsory-education law. Many of the states have laws to pre¬ 
vent child labor. All the states have already done something to 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


94 

shorten hours of labor. Most of the states require government 
inspection of steam boilers. It would be unfortunate, of course, 
if many men were as ignorant as to want what the writers of 
answers 7 and 9 said they wanted. Nevertheless, if enough 
people in the United States wanted "a law to pass no more 
laws” until those now existing could be executed, and a law 
restricting the use of machinery in all branches of labor, such 
laws would be passed. 

Whether in the future years our democracy becomes a suc¬ 
cess or a failure depends on the people who make the laws and 
choose the officials. There is no magic in the word "democ¬ 
racy”; the only magic that any nation possesses lies in the 
ideals of its people. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter through as a whole before studying it by sections. 
Outline the whole, but do not use the headings of the text. 

2 . Define organization ; contract ; agreement ; constitution. 

3 . Bring to class a copy of a deed of sale or some business contract. 
If you cannot do this, draw up for yourself a contract of employment 
between yourself and some firm or person for whom you should like 
to work. Read the first several paragraphs of the Constitution, at the 
back of this book, and of your state constitution, and show how these 
are business contracts. 

4 . If your state history includes a copy of the charter of one of the 
early colonies, study this as a work document and discuss it in class. 

5 . Tell how and why the national government was formed. When 
and how were your state and community governments formed? 

6. Turn to your history and read about the Bill of Rights and the 
Articles of Confederation. See also Appendix, pp. xvii-xx. 

7 . Compile in your civics notebook a numbered list of all the para¬ 
graphs in the Constitution that come under the five headings on page 83. 
Make a similar list from your state constitution. 

8 . Under each item set down some recent laws passed by Congress 
and the state legislature to carry out these helps. 

9 . On pages 79-81 of text a list of the ten official departments of the 
national government is given. In addition to these there are a number 


GOVERNMENT HELPS WORK LIFE 


95 


of separate boards and commissions. Those which were active in 1923 
are given below. In the latest copy of the Congressional Directory you 
will find all departments, bureaus, and commissions listed and their 
duties and powers given. Copy these in your loose-leaf notebook and in 
connection with each fill in the data indicated by the following headings: 


Official 

TITLE OF 
Department, 
Board, or 
Commission 


Official 
Title of 
Head of 

How 

AND 

If Appointed, 

BY WHOM, 

AND WHEN 

Term 

of 

Office 

Chief 

Principal 
Subdivisions 
or Bureaus 

Present 

Holder 

Department, 
Board, or 
Commission 

WHEN 

Chosen 

Duties 

of 

Office 





Interstate Commerce Commission 
United States Shipping Board 
Federal Power Commission 
Railway Labor Board 
Bureau of Efficiency 
United States Tariff Commission 


Federal Board for Vocational Education 
Civil Service Commission 
Federal Reserve Board 
National Screw Thread Commission 
United States Coal Commission 
Federal Fuel Distributor 


10. At least one lesson should be given up to discussing your state 
constitution and its amendments. The teacher will assign different 
topics to different members of the class: 

1. When was your first state constitution made? It is not necessary to 

remember the year, but keep in mind how long ago it was drawn up. 

2. Has it been revised? If so, what kind of changes were made? 

3. If you live in a state that was one of the original thirteen states, find out 

something about the state’s first charter. 

4. Copy down the sentences that indicate that the constitution is an agree¬ 

ment which the people have made with themselves. 

5. Outline briefly what the constitution says about (1) governor; (2) edu¬ 

cation; (3) county government; (4) city government. 

11 . Take a week’s issue of a large city daily newspaper and cut out 
all items which refer to laws or to government departments or officials 
that concern work life. Discuss these in class. 

12 . Find out whether your state has laws dealing with such small mat¬ 
ters as size of bricks. 

13 . Analyze the work day of some member of your family or of some 
friend who works for a living and show (1) what part each person has 
to do unaided, (2) what part is helped by what some private organiza¬ 
tion does, (3) what part the government helps. 

14 . What is private property ? Explain that unless this is protected 
by government, all other government helps are wasted. 













COMMUNITY CIVICS 


96 

15. What property does your family own? Think out the different 
ways in which this is protected from theft and destruction by govern¬ 
ment. 

16. Show how changes in laws affecting work life can be made if the 
people are patient. 

17. The following is a list of the principal state officials, boards, and 
commissions of one state. Secure a copy of the latest state manual 
issued by your state, and from this compile a corresponding list of the 
officials, boards, and commissions. Copy these in your loose-leaf note¬ 
book, and against each write as fully as possible the information sug¬ 
gested by these headings (information can be obtained not only from 
the state manual but from the state constitution and special reports 
issued by the state): 


Official 

HOW AND WHEN 

If Appointed, 

Term 

Duties 

Assistants 

Present 

Title 

Chosen (Elected 

BY WHOM 

of 

or 

Holder of 

or Appointed) 

Office 


Subdivisions 

Office 


Governor 

Lieutenant governor 

Secretary of State 

Comptroller 

Treasurer 

Attorney-general 

State engineer and surveyor 

State commissioner of highways 

Commissioner of health 

Commissioner of agriculture 

Budget commission 

State board of charities 

Civil-service commission 

Conservation commission 

Commissioner of education 


State hospital commission 
Commission of immigration 
Department of labor 
State library commission 
State commission of prisons 
Public-service commission 
State tax commissioners 
Superintendent of banks 
Superintendent of insurance 
Superintendent of public works 
Architect 

Superintendent of state prisons 
State supreme-court judges 
Tenement-house commission 


18. What is the relation of the community to the state and the nation ? 

19. Begin to search your local and state newspapers for items show¬ 
ing how often different towns and cities have to get permission from 
the state legislature to do certain things. 

Note to Teacher. In the Appendix following the text of the Consti¬ 
tution are four pages (pp. xvii-xx) of suggestions and questions to assist 
in studying the Constitution. These may be used to supplement this 
chapter as well as for a separate later study. (See note on page 128 .) 











CHAPTER V 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 

1 . Home Life not Separate from Government. In the pre¬ 
ceding chapters you have been reminded often that government 
exists for the sake of and as a result of two things—work life 
and home life. We have given more emphasis to the work side 
of the nation because it is only through this that home life is 
possible. But we shall get only a one-sided view of the Ameri¬ 
can people unless we give a little special attention to the home. 

2 . Home is our Most Precious Possession. At the end of the 
World War the American Red Cross, in helping clear out the 
prison camps in Austria and Germany, found many Russian 
prisoners who could not tell the name of the town or province 
from which they came. When one of these was brought before 
the Red Cross major and was asked: "Who are you? Where 
is your home?” there was no answer. Even with the sympa¬ 
thetic help of the interpreter he could not seem to understand 
what they wanted him to say. But finally a slow smile spread 
over his sober face, and he spoke eagerly. The interpreter 
turned to the major, also with a smile, but a sad one: "He 
says he is Ivan, and he lives in a stone house by a big blue 
river.” That was all. He did not know Russia, but he did know 
home. This incident helped the American people understand 
the Russian peasant better than many pages of history. 

3 . Importance of the Right Kind of Home. Lack of the right 
kind of homes always means disaster to a nation. In December, 
1920, Senator William M. Calder announced in the Senate at 
Washington that "there is a shortage of 1,000,000 dwellings in 
the United States today.” On the same day in a New York 
paper appeared a column headed 

Wave of Crime Sweeps over the City 
97 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


98 

and then followed a list of burglaries, hold-ups, and murders 
that had occurred in the city the day and evening before. In 
one case the criminals were boys, and when the police looked 
up the addresses which they gave they could find no one who 
knew them. These boys either had no real homes or else were 
ashamed to let the home people know about their misdeeds. 

Perhaps most of the readers of the newspaper did not see 
the relation between the shortage of a million homes and the 
deeds of crime. But the home shortage was partly responsible 
for the crime wave. Men who have made a study of the inmates 
of reformatories and prisons say that 80 per cent of them come 
from the slums or are homeless. One investigator claims that 
the draft riots in New York City in 1863 were started by home¬ 
less men. Men who sleep in alleyways or for ten cents a night 
in cheap lodging-houses, and either loaf all day or do odd jobs, 
never thrilL at the call to defend the Stars and Stripes. 

Since the wrong kind of home or the lack of a home has such 
disastrous results, it is important to know what a home is and 
what kind of homes America has. Most of us have always been 
within a home, and it therefore seems as much a part of us as 
our clothing. What we have always had we seldom understand 
or appreciate. Sooner or later, however, every person has to 
learn what the home stands for, either because something de¬ 
prives him of it or because he starts planning one of his own. 
What an American home is cannot be told in one sentence, for 
home life in the United States varies as widely as work life. 
To understand what it is we need first to look back to the days 
of the pioneers. 

4 . Looking Backward. After Columbus discovered America 
every great nation of Europe sent explorers and colonists to 
take possession of as much of the continent as possible. The 
chief reason that what is now the United States became an Eng¬ 
lish nation and not a second Spain, or a new Italy, or Portugal, 
was that from the very beginning the English who came to these 
shores planned to make their homes here. A man will work and 
fight longer and more courageously for his home than for his 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


99 

king, or even for gold. In the early days no boatloads of fami¬ 
lies seeking homes came from Spain or Italy. If they had, the 
history of what we now call the United States might have been 
different. We have so long emphasized the fact that many of the 
early settlers came here seeking freedom to worship God as 
they wished, that we forget they never thought of this apart 
from the home. They wanted homes free from the interference 
of a king’s prying officials, for the Pilgrim worshiped God in his 
home far more than in the church. Grace was said at every 
meal; the Bible-reading and prayers were a part of every day’s 
twilight hour. 

5 . Pioneers’ Homes. From the earliest days the pioneers 
who turned toward the West consisted not of groups of stalwart 
men going ahead to cut forests and clear land suitable for homes, 
but of family groups, including old women and young chil¬ 
dren, whose home by day was the prairie schooner and by night 
a leafy shelter in the woods or on the bank of a stream. The 
spirit of these families was as brave as that of the most adven¬ 
turous explorers. The kind of hardships they often had to 
encounter are pictured in the diary of a "forty-niner”: 

May 18, 1851. . . . Early in the week a miner came 
down from Sailor Ravine and told us that up on the ridge 
where the emigrant road comes thro the mountains a party 
was camped and were in distress, and that he was going into 
town to get relief from them. . . . There were three fam¬ 
ilies, men and their wives and five children, one baby not a 
month old that had been born on the Humboldt desert. 

The mother was nothing but skin and bone, a young 
woman. . . . The rest of them did not look much better 
and one, a young girl fourteen years old, was sick to the 
point of death. They had four yoke of oxen who were 
walking skeletons. . . . Their grub had given out. . . . 

It was one of the saddest plights I ever saw, but I cheered 
them up and told them there would be plenty for all be¬ 
fore sundown. Sure enough, Pard, Lawyer Dunn, and 
Tom Buckner rode into camp before dark, driving a pack- 
mule loaded with all kinds of grub. 


100 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



In spite tff such hardships they never faltered. One family, 
on its way to the Wabash, every evening gathered close to the 
camp fire for protection and told stories of fertile prairies cov¬ 
ered with blackberries and raspberries that they believed lay 
before them, of streams full of fish, of forests filled with game, 

" plenty and plenty for 
their sons and their sons’ 
sons after them.” After 
the stories, to the ac¬ 
companiment of a fiddle, 
they sang "Old Virginny 
never Tire” and other 
songs that they had 
learned from the negroes 
in their Eastern home 
country. 

6. Home Life has 
changed Swiftly. Like 
the work life of America, 
home life has changed 
swiftly and strangely 
since the days of the 
prairie schooner. Amer¬ 
ica has been filling up 
with people, houses, and 
factories. Factories have 
expanded so rapidly that 
hundreds of workers have 
sometimes been added 
in a single month. This has meant that houses near factories 
had to be built in great haste. The result was large tenement 
blocks. The kind of work that must be done in offices has in¬ 
creased at the same rate that factory work has, for the two are 
closely related. Office work must be near post office and rail¬ 
road and is therefore crowded into cities and towns that are 
centrally located. More than fifteen thousand people work in 


© Mary H. Northend 

The pioneer home into which wood was 
brought by the armful 






AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


IOI 


some of the office buildings in New York City and Chicago; 
therefore hotels, boarding-houses, apartment houses of one-room 
and two-room suites, have had to be built near them. 

Inventions and machinery that have so greatly changed the 
manner of work life of America have also had their part in 
changing the manner of home life. It is a long jump from the 
primitive home, into which firewood had to be brought by 
the armful, water by the 
pailful, and food from the 
fields by the basket or wag¬ 
onful, to the modern home, 
into which heat is brought 
by the turning of a valve or 
the lighting of a match, 
water by the turning of a 
faucet, food by talking into 
the telephone. One has only 
to imagine any great city 
suddenly changed in only 
two respects—wells instead 
of faucets, and stairs in¬ 
stead of elevators—to ap¬ 
preciate what transformers 
inventions have been. No 
one can believe for a mo¬ 
ment that any family would 
live on the tenth floor of 
the most luxurious apart¬ 
ment house imaginable if all its water had to be brought from 
a well and carried by hand up the nine flights of stairs. 

Not only have inventions and plans brought into use a new 
kind of home, but they have helped transform the old kinds. 
Bathrooms, telephones, automobiles, fireless cookers, have made 
many a humble home more truly luxurious than the great pal¬ 
aces of Queen Elizabeth. Home life in the United States is 
still being changed, and the end is not in sight. 



© Mary H. Northend 


The modern home into which fuel is 
brought by electric wires 




102 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


7 . Many People are temporarily deprived of Homes. Mod¬ 
ern work life has not only changed the size and kind of homes 
of the workers, it has deprived thousands of people of homes 

for many years. In the days 
of the pioneers all the mem¬ 
bers of most families found 
their work in the forests and 
fields near their home. When 
for short periods the men went 
long distances hunting or fish¬ 
ing or surveying, they made 
temporary homes out of what¬ 
ever rude shelter they could 
improvise; but they always re¬ 
turned to the one home, and 
needed only this until the sons 
and daughters left to make 
homes of their own. Today the 
newer kinds of work that must 
be done in factories, office 
buildings, and stores often re¬ 
sult in the separation of fami¬ 
lies. Only a substitute home is 
available for many thousands 
of such workers. Substitute 
homes are sometimes a small 
bedroom in another person’s 
home, or a large room in a 
lodging-house, or, in the case 
of those whose salaries are 
large enough, a room or several 
rooms in a hotel or a modern luxurious clubhouse. 

8. Different Types of Homes. Because modern work con¬ 
ditions vary widely we have many kinds of homes. Some of the 
principal types are included in the brief descriptions given 
on pages 103 and 104. 



© Mary H. Northend 


In crowded cities there are homes 
even over garages 









AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


103 


1. "We called our room the 'kitchen/ though it was the 
one and only room in our new 'home.’ It opened into a 
narrow alley, from which stairs led up to a courtyard. . . . 
A clever landlord had placed board flooring in a cellar, 
partitioned it off, and rented it to immigrant families. . . . 
Fanny, the new American baby, May, and I quite filled 
the room. In addition, there were a gas stove, a table, 
a huge bookcase holding many Hebrew books, two chairs, 
a trunk, a cot, a box, a cradle, and a big kitchen clock.” 
(The description given by an immigrant girl of her first 
home in America.') 

2. a. "What kinda house, boss? Bigga piazza. Ma 
wife and de baby and maself like to sit on de piazza after 
I get home nights. Sometimes I playa de mandolin and 
smoke de pipe. Dis a de life.” 

b. "Well, I like a house not too big, where sunlight is 
no stranger. And a good piazza. A piazza with some size 
to it has a lot of uses, and a little one is only good to step 
on to and off from. Another thing is the kitchen. They 
skimp ’em sometimes. A little kitchen may be all right, 
but not for me.” 

{When in 1918 the United States Housing Corporation 
was building homes near the government shipyards, it sent 
an official among the workers to ask , fr What kind of home 
do you want ?” The above were two of the answers.) 

3. " For sale. A real opportunity for someone wishing 
a comfortable and charming home at Pasadena, California. 
There are 11 rooms, including 2 sleeping porches, a sun 
parlor, and a screened porch. A rose arbor leads to the 
garage. The house is gray with white trimmings and a 
green roof; it has fruit trees and a lawn in back and front. 
The downstairs living-room, which has a large fireplace, 
extends across the whole front of the house. The sun 
parlor is just off the dining-room, and back of this are 
kitchen and laundry. Upstairs are bedrooms, one of which 
commands a wonderful view of snow-capped mountains. 
There is also a children’s room with large playroom and 
sleeping porch.” {One of a long list of home advertise¬ 
ments appearing in a daily paper.) 


104 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


4. "For rent. A real home for business gentleman or 
couple in private family. Two large, attractive, furnished 
rooms, all conveniences, with open fireplaces, continuous 
hot water. 20 minutes to South Station. Breakfasts op¬ 
tional. References exchanged. For particulars phone Mil- 
ton 2291—W.” (One of more than fifty advertisements in 
one issue of a daily paper.) 

5. "A little white house perched on flower-covered rocks, 
within sight of the Sound through a screen of birch trees. 
Inside the house there are some choice old bits of English 
and Italian furniture bought by a lady who knows the real 
from the false, and has a fine eye for the color of her hang¬ 
ings and her chintz-covered chairs. On cool nights a fire 
burns in a wide hearth, and the electric lamps are turned 
out to show the soft light of tall fat candles in wrought- 
iron torches each side of the hearthstone. Galli-Curci sings 
from a gramophone between Hawaiian airs or the latest 
ragtime; or the master of the house—a man of all the 
talents and the heart of youth—strikes out plaintive little 
melodies made up "out of his own head,” as children say, 
on a rosewood piano, while the two children play "Polly- 
anna” on the carpet, and their mother watches through 
half-shut eyes the picture she has made of the room. It is 
a pretty picture of an American interior, as a painter might 
see it.” (A description of an American home written by a 
noted foreigner who spent many months in studying the 
United States.) 

6. One evening when President Roosevelt was prepar¬ 
ing an important message to Congress that would be read 
and discussed in every business office in the nation, one of 
the ushers of the White House appeared with a telegram 
from Kermit and Ted about the great victory of their foot¬ 
ball team at Harvard. The President dropped his work to 
rush into the next room where his wife and daughter were. 
Important affairs of the nation were forgotten as they 
cheered the good news of the telegram and talked of the 
game as eagerly as if football were an important family 
matter, as it really was. And late that evening Roosevelt 
found time to write Kermit, telling how much pleasure the 
news gave them. 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


105 

9 . The Essentials of an American Home. None of these de¬ 
scriptions is a complete picture of an American home, but each 
gives an idea of the kind of place that many people call home. 
A home may be a whole house or part of a house—two or more 
rooms or even one room. To be a home a place must have some 
suggestion of beauty, 
some means of securing 
companionship, some 
degree of privacy, and 
the spirit of service. 

The most spacious 
and the best-furnished 
house that can be made 
will fail to be a true 
home unless it gives the 
family the means of do¬ 
ing or enjoying some¬ 
thing together. It is the 
'Together” part of a 
home that distinguishes 
it from a hotel or a 
boarding-house. That 
is why in the real home 
the rooms open into 
each other and are not 
separate as in a hotel or 
a boarding-house. But 
even connecting rooms 
will not make a house a home unless there is something that 
produces the spirit of companionship. In the descriptions given 
on an earlier page these are the things that can bring a family 
together: porch, books, fireplace, candles, mandolin, piano, 
gramophone, singing, games, playroom. A person can enjoy a 
book, a fireplace, candlelight, or a gramophone alone, but the 
person who does not want to share these pleasures with his 
friends is an unnatural person. 



i£) Mary H. Northend 

One of the nation’s many substitute homes— 
a boarding-house 









io6 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


"Things,” however, are not always necessary to add the 
touch that makes a real home. Making the supper table at 
night the place where the experiences of the day are exchanged, 
pleasant things told, plans talked over, requires only the right 



Perhaps the only beautiful thing a home will have is a window that faces a 
garden or open field. That alone will make the home beautiful 

desire. Opportunities are never hard to find—each day brings 
its own. Sharing a football game is a simple thing, but it is one 
of the simple things that made the White House, while Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt lived in it, the kind of real home that caused the 
author of Uncle Remus to say: 









AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


107 


That’s one thing about the White House that’ll aston¬ 
ish you ef you ever git thar while Teddy is on hand. It’s 
a home; it’ll come over you like a sweet dream the minnit 
you git in the door, and you’ll wonder how they sweep out 
all the politics and keep the place clean and wholesome. 

We have said that America has been a nation of dreamers 
who have made their dreams come true. This has been because 



© E. L. Crandall 

The most celebrated home in the nation—the White House at Washington 


there were homes in which these dreamers could dream dreams. 
It is the leisure hours and the sympathy of the home that make 
it possible for men and women to do impossible things. 

10 . The Spirit of Service in the Home. A true American 
home will never have shirkers or slackers. Each person shares 
in the expense of the home or in the work of the house or in 
both. Any person of whom this is not true is no more a real 
American than the men who beg from door to door. There are 
some persons who because of deformity or illness can do no use¬ 
ful work in the outside world, but there is scarcely a person, 
even of those who are bedridden or blind, who cannot do some 
service for the home. A young man who for years never 




io8 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


left his bed and had only the use of his arms, learned to knit 
face cloths, which he sold through his friends. He used his 
spare hours to read worth-while books and magazines for which 
his mother and brother had no time, and evenings they came to 
his room to hear him tell of the things he had read. 



© Detroit Pub. Co. 


Only in the real home can the members of the family get the help necessary to 
succeed in the outside world 


11 . How we can tell what Kind of Homes America has. 

Since the essential part of a home is what cannot be seen or 
touched, it is evident that in the home pictures given on pages 
103-104 the only ones with enough details to show whether 
they were real homes are 5 and 6. Most of the others include at 
least one thing that would make a home possible. Even the 
two furnished rooms in another person’s home had one possi¬ 
bility—the fireplace. But whether they were indeed homes 







AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 109 

depended on the kind of use made of them. As one walks 
through the streets of any town or city, the lighted windows tell 
him that people live within, but he can only guess whether he 
would find there real homes. 

12. Applying the Home-Owning Test. There are, however, 
several ways by which we may get some idea as to whether 
America is a home-loving nation. One of these ways is to apply 
the home-owning test. One of the things that has drawn men 
from all parts of the world to America is the chance to buy a 
piece of land and own a home. Often the foreign-born are more 
eager to own their homes than the native-born. 

In a fishing-town in New England 80 per cent of the 
Portuguese live in houses that they own, while less than 
60 per cent of the American families own theirs. An Italian 
family of globe wanderers who had gone from Sicily (where 
the man was a stonemason) to France, from there to South 
America to pick coffee on a Brazilian plantation, finally 
had come to America and settled in one of the steel-mill 
towns. By careful saving and with the help of the board 
of two relatives, the steel-worker was soon able to buy a 
four-room house. After mill hours the first summer he built 
a fence, a henhouse, a cold frame for vegetables, and 
cleared the yard for a garden. 

13. Workers who cannot buy their Homes. There are many 
workers in every part of the country who are prevented by work 
conditions from owning their homes. One year the commis¬ 
sion of labor statistics in Wisconsin wanted to find out if the 
workers of the state were contented and prosperous enough to 
wish to make their permanent homes there. He therefore sent 
out thousands of letters containing a list of questions, one of 
which was "Does the town where you live offer inducement to 
acquire homes, or is employment too uncertain?’' Many of the 
answers were like the following: 

1 This is a good place to live. A joint-stock company is building a 
dam across the Wisconsin River preparatory to putting up a large pulp 
mill and other works. 


no 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


2. Work so uncertain as to make owning a home undesirable. 

3. I have a home of my own, and most of those whom I know also 
have. . . . Could we have a few more factories so that the surplus 
labor could be steadily employed, Green Bay would indeed be a paradise. 

4. No work. No pay. No home. 

5. No encouragement here to get a house. I own a home in-. 

Employment here is uncertain. I cannot move my family, because I do 
not know how long work will last. 

14. Workers who do not try to buy their Homes. Steady 
work usually means real homes. Uncertain work often means 
boarding-houses. There are, however, many thousands of people 
who have fairly constant work who do not own and do not make 
any attempt to own their homes. Because caring for a home is 
hard work there are many Americans who choose the boarding¬ 
house. Because a home means investing most or all of one’s 
savings and mortgaging the savings of future years, some Amer¬ 
icans have not the courage to make the attempt. In addition 
to these, there are, of course, many whose wages or salaries 
make owning a home impossible. 

15. Home Owners have Greater Freedomthan Home Renters. 
In 1920 there were 24,351,676 families in the United States. Of 
these 10,866,960 families were living in their own homes and 
12,943,598 families in rented houses. About half of the owned 
homes were wholly paid for, the others being still encumbered 
with a mortgage. In the years directly after the World War 
there was so great a shortage of houses that men and women 
frantically bid against each other for the ownership of the de¬ 
sirable houses. Families which had been living in rented houses 
were forced to vacate or buy the houses. This was the first 
lesson that many people had in what freedom really means, for 
no family has real freedom unless it owns its home. It would 
not be so important that families own their homes if it were not 
for the fact that it is easier to make a real home out of the 
house one owns than out of a rented house. 

As work life is organized today, only a part of the nation’s 
workers can own their work; the farmer, the doctor, the lawyer, 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


hi 



the store worker, and a few others can in some cases become the 
sole owners of their work, but in most other occupations the 
worker works for another, not for himself. It is especially 
important that those who cannot own their work own their 
homes, for in this way a person really possesses and knows that 
he possesses some part of the United States. 


The lodging-house home of a bookkeeper in a large town. What home 
features does it have ? 

Judged by the home-owning test, less than half of the Ameri¬ 
can people have real homes. There are, however, many indica¬ 
tions that this is only a temporary condition and that true 
Americans are as eager as ever to possess homes of their own. 
One of these indications is the new scheme by which a person 
may buy one apartment in a house containing many apart¬ 
ments. This and other ways, such as better transportation 
facilities from crowded work centers to suburban home areas, 
are being devised to make owning a home possible just as rap- 








COMMUNITY CIVICS 


112 




idly as the people insist, for it is still within the power of the 
American people to make work life and home life what they 


wish them to be. 

16 . Applying the Investment Test. Another home test to apply 
to the American people is the investment test. The pioneers 
had only to invest time and hard work in order to have homes. 
Today no home can be built or bought without an investment of 

money. A person either 
waits until he has saved 
enough money to buy a 
home outright, or else bor¬ 
rows money from a sav¬ 
ings bank, a cooperative 
bank, or a workingman’s 
loan association. In the 
first case he is investing 
only his own money in the 
house; in the second case 
he is investing his own 
savings and is borrowing 
the savings of others. 
Those who are thrifty 
enough to save money 
and place it in savings 
banks, cooperative banks, 
or workingmen’s loan as¬ 
sociations are helping 
others to build homes. 

17 . Applying the Slum Test. Still another home test to apply 
to the nation is the slum test. It is not enough for a person to 
buy a home or to invest his savings so that others can build 
homes. If there is a single dark, unhealthy tenement in his 
community the welfare of his own home and of the whole 
community is menaced. Disease, crime, and despair are born in 
such tenements. It is the poor, the discouraged, the men and 
women who have served jail sentences and are not wanted any- 



© Mary H. Northern! 

In every true home each person does some 
act of service 












AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


113 

where, the immigrants who have come to America without 
friends or funds and do not know which way to turn, who live in 
the slums, and these are the helpless ones of the community. 
They do not make the slums, but are powerless to change them. 
If the part of the community and the state that is not discour¬ 
aged and ignorant did its duty, there would be no slums. There 
are two ways of destroying these pest spots of America: ( 1 ) by 
means of private organi¬ 
zations, which so arouse 
public opinion that the 
owners of slum property 
are forced to change it 
into decent houses, and 
( 2 ) by means of state laws 
and city ordinances that 
require all buildings to be 
sanitary and convenient. 

18. Applying the Work 
Test. Still another home 
test to apply to Ameri¬ 
cans is the work test. 

The spirit that workers 
put into earning their liv¬ 
ing is usually an index to 
the kind of homes they 
have. Those who have 
homes of their own are 
apt to make better workers. They strive harder for permanent 
success so that there will be no danger of having to give up the 
home to search for work elsewhere. But as we have already 
said, a rented home can be a real home if those in it have the 
right spirit. And whether or not the rented home is a real home 
is often indicated by the kind of work a worker does. Go 
through any office factory, or field, and wherever you find an 
earnest, faithful worker, you have found a person who either has 
a real home or dreams of one that he hopes some day to have. 





COMMUNITY CIVICS 



114 

19. The American wants to do Everything Possible for his 
Home. It is because his home means so much to every true 
American that he wants to do everything possible for it him¬ 
self. Only in real extremity will he call on his neighbors, and 
only when he and his neighbors are helpless to secure a desired 
result will he organize government help. There are many illus¬ 
trations of the way that the people have first secured the 


© Brown Bros. 

The person who owns his home is more likely to keep it attractive than one 
who rents a home 

assistance of private individuals and then of government to 
make homes safe and comfortable. One illustration is that of 
the district nurse. At first illness in the home meant that some 
members of the family or all the members in turn must care 
for the patient. When the illness became a strain on the. home 
people, neighbors took turns "watching.” After a time fraternal 
and other private organizations supplied "watches” for their 
members when ill. Then after many years groups of people 
began to form district nurses’ or visiting nurses’ associations. 
These associations paid one or more trained nurses to live in 
the community and go each day into the homes where there 
was illness. These nurses proved so helpful to many communi- 




AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


US 

ties that finally several states passed a law allowing towns and 
cities to appropriate funds for hiring such nurses, thus making 
them government officials. 

Another illustration of the way that each family first tries 
to protect its own home without assistance, then calls on 
friends, neighbors, and private organizations, and finally turns 
to the state and nation for help is that furnished by intoxicating 
liquor. When families were impoverished and often broken up 
by drink, little temperance societies and big temperance socie¬ 
ties were formed in every part of the country. After many 
years, when the people saw that they could not adequately pro¬ 
tect the home from the evil consequences of liquor by even the 
most powerful private organizations, they devised plans for 
government help. Some states amended their constitutions to 
prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, others 
passed laws giving each town or city permission to decide for 
itself whether or not it should have saloons. Because these 
various schemes were only partially successful, in 1919 the 
people as a whole added an amendment to the Constitution of 
the United States forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating liquor. 

20. Government helps to secure Privacy in the Home. What 
the people have been unable to do for themselves in their home¬ 
making they have created government machinery to do for 
them. As we have already explained, one of the things de¬ 
manded by the American people is privacy and freedom for the 
home. We have locks on our doors to keep out the dishonest, 
and curtains at our windows to screen out the gaze of the curi¬ 
ous and unfriendly. We cannot bear to have the thing that is 
dearest to us open to the ready gaze of those who are spying and 
unfriendly. The makers of the Constitution of the United 
States placed in the supreme law of the land these two re¬ 
quirements : 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any 
house, without the consent of the owner; nor in time of 
war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 


n6 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


The right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches 
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall 
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or 
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

From that day Americans have protected by law the privacy 
of their homes to a degree known in but few other countries. Re¬ 
cently the city council of a city passed an ordinance requiring 
all women engaged in hairdressing as an occupation to secure 
a license. It was the duty of the police department to see that 
this ordinance was complied with. One officer called early in 
the morning at the home of a young woman employed in the 
hairdressing department of a large store to ask why she had not 
secured a license. The girl’s mother answered the ring of the 
bell, but kept the officer waiting on the doorstep. However 
indignant the police officer may have been, he could not enter 
the house unless permitted to do so. In both England and 
America a man’s home is literally his castle. No search can be 
effected, no arrest made, without a warrant based on such evi¬ 
dence as will convince a judge in open court. During the World 
War a police lieutenant in Berlin boasted: ”1 can have my 
neighbor arrested, his house searched, and the man detained in 
prison for twenty hours even if he is as innocent as a lamb. 
And I can do it without a process beforehand or being made to 
answer for it afterward.” The police of our country were baffled 
and defeated many times in arresting spies who were plotting 
against the nation, because they could not enter a private house 
on mere suspicion. But the American people would rather suffer 
occasionally from the evils of spies than to have their homes 
constantly at the mercy of government officials. 

The only times government officials step in and take pos¬ 
session of the home are when a member of a household has 
been murdered or has committed suicide, or when fire has so 
demolished a home that the ordinary means of protection 
against thieves are no longer effective, or when members of the 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 117 

family are ill with a contagious disease and are unwilling to 
obey the local quarantine regulations. These are only emer¬ 
gency occasions. 

21 . Government secures Religious Freedom for the Home. 
Perhaps the next most important thing that government does 
for the home is guaranteeing it religious freedom. The first 
amendment to the Federal Constitution specified that " Con¬ 
gress shall make no law respecting an establishment of re¬ 
ligion.” We are apt to think of religion in connection with 
church buildings, but religion is first a matter of the home. One 
of the tyrannies of the Europe from which the early settlers 
of America came had been interference in religious matters. 
There can be no real home unless families are free to decide 
these matters for themselves. The makers of the Constitution 
settled this point for the whole nation. 

22 . Home is Impossible without Government Protection. 
After the Russian government had been overthrown in 1917 
and no capable government had taken its place, there was no 
safety in any home. A Russian woman who left her country and 
came to America said: 

Fear has gripped my people to such an extent that few 
sleep on their couches at night. Members of families sit 
dozing beside tables through the long hours of the night, 
with their heads buried in their arms. One member of the 
family is always on watch. Death lurks everywhere at 
night. 

This would be the picture of any country or section of any coun¬ 
try in which government failed to protect life and property. 

In the pioneer days the only protection that the home had 
was a barred door and a gun. In times of emergency each man 
looked to his neighbors for help, and the stockade to which 
they could all flee for greater protection was the result. As the 
nation has grown, there have been many kinds of protection for 
the home that guns and stockades could not provide. All homes 
still have barred doors, but the chief responsibility for the pro¬ 
tection of the home the people have given to the local police 


n8 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


departments of towns and cities and to the state constabulary 
in rural sections. Protection from violence, however, is only 
one of the many helps that people have found it more con¬ 
venient to secure through government than by themselves. Pro¬ 
tection against fire is secured through many laws in regard to 
electric wiring in houses, bonfires, explosives, and by the es¬ 
tablishment of a fire department; protection against disease is 
secured by laws in regard to drinking-water, garbage dis¬ 
posal, sewage, plumbing, bakeries, markets, and by the estab¬ 
lishment of a health department. 

23. Different Kinds of Protection needed for the Home. But 
the home requires another kind of protection—protection of 
home-ownership. We now have laws specifying 

1. How ownership shall be determined. 

2. The way in which property can change owners. 

3. The only way in which a person can be deprived of his property. 

4. The ways in which a person must compensate one whose property 
has been injured by him. 

5. The form of punishment for theft, burglary, and arson. 

When a local district court recently sentenced a young man to 
the House of Correction for two years for stealing two roosters, 
the judge took pains to make it clear that the heavy sentence 
was for breaking and entering another person’s home—home 
includes sheds and yard, as well as house. A man who snatches 
a purse from a person on the street is not punished as severely 
as the man who enters a house and steals a purse of equal value. 
It is the severity of these and similar laws protecting homes 
against evildoers that has made property in the United States 
so valuable. 

The Federal Constitution guarantees that no state shall 
"deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due 
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction 
the equal protection of the laws.” This provision of the Con¬ 
stitution has done more to make the United States a home¬ 
owning nation than any other one thing. There are no favored 
few in the United States in home-making and home-owning. 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 119 

The Italian fruit vender who ten years ago opened and still 
conducts a small fruit and peanut stand in a college city, today 
owns a substantial home on one of the best streets. A woman 
in the same city who goes out by the day washing owns the 
two-family house in which she lives. Out of 2112 owners in a 
certain section of the Middle West whom the Department of 
Agriculture investigated a few years ago, more than three 
fourths of them had previously been hired men or tenant farm¬ 
ers. The chance to own a home has been the thing that has 
brought to this continent many of the finest men and women 
who have come from Europe. 

24 . The Departments of the National Government concerned 
with the Home. Through the many laws which Congress has 
passed from time to time the homes of the nation have been 
helped in many other ways. The departments which have been 
especially concerned are 

1. The Post Office Department, which brings to the home many things 
that make for comfort and beauty, and keeps the members of families in 
touch with each other. 

2. The Treasury Department, which, through its bureau of public- 
health service, is constantly investigating the cause of disease and the 
ways of preventing the spread of epidemics. 

3. The Department of Justice, which, together with the Treasury 
Department, has the enforcing of the prohibition amendment. 

4. The Department of the Interior, which, through its land office, has 
had the pleasant task of opening up and allotting the free lands, as 
directed by Congress. Through the patent bureau of this department 
such modern home conveniences as electric lights, steam-heating appa¬ 
ratus, the telephone, ice-cream freezers, egg beaters, and a long list of 
other articles have been made possible. The copyright division of this 
same department has helped fill the bookshelves of the home with the 
world’s best literature. 

5. The Department of Agriculture, which not only has indirectly 
helped the home in all its work by making the farm more efficient, but 
has a special bureau which prepares exhibits and sends agents to the 
farming sections to suggest ways of making the home more convenient 
and attractive. 

6. The Department of Labor, which, through the Children’s Bureau, 


120 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



has done much to prevent infant mortality and to protect children. Dur¬ 
ing the war a housing bureau was added to this department, to build 
homes for the workers near shipyards and munitions factories. 

7. The War Department, which, by means of army posts set up 
along the frontier in the early days, protected the homes from destruc¬ 
tion by the Indians; which, when public lands were opened up, policed 
them to see that the laws of Congress were conformed with; and which 


(£j) Underwood and Underwood 

National and state governments reach out even to such isolated homes as this 

today patrols the long stretch of boundary between the United States 
and Mexico to protect the homes of the border from the violence of 
marauding Mexicans. 

8. The Departments of State, Navy, and Commerce, which, by 
means of the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce and the 
protection of navigation, help make it possible for homes to get fuel, 
food, and the comforts of living. 

All these departments affect home life as intimately as they 
do work life. Even the State Department, which seems as far 
removed from the home as any part of government can be, in 
reality does invaluable daily service for it through the trade 
treaties which it has made and is constantly making with other 
countries. The coffee, tea, spices, silks, and rubber, which every 



AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


121 


home uses, are brought from foreign countries. Foreign mer¬ 
chants would not send these goods to the United States unless 
they were protected by agreements, made through our State 
Department, about shipping rates, payment of bills, rate of 
exchange, and other similar matters. 

25 . Two Illustrations of the Help given by the Nation. We 
cannot take the space to tell in detail what all the different 
bureaus of the national government do for the home, but an 
illustration of the kind of practical help which they try to give 
is well furnished by the Department of Agriculture. Because 
of the tests which one of the bureaus of this department makes 
of foods of every description to see that they are pure, home 
keepers are saved much time and the family’s health is pro¬ 
tected. Another bureau of this department (the states’-relations 
service) recently employed more than four hundred women 
agents in fifteen states to give the people of the rural districts 
suggestions about such labor-saving devices as the "scrubbing 
chariot,” the fireless cooker, and the iceless refrigerator. 

Another illustration of the importance that government at¬ 
taches to the home is found in one of its immigration regula¬ 
tions of the Department of Labor. All foreign-born persons who 
come to America to live must be able to read some language; 
but although illiteracy is known to be a peril to the nation, Con¬ 
gress in 1917 made certain exceptions to this rule in order to 
prevent the breaking up of families. A foreign-born American 
may send for his wife, mother, grandmother, and his unmarried 
or widowed daughter, and if they meet the requirements of the 
law in all other respects except that of being able to read, they 
will be admitted into the United States. He may also send for 
his father and grandfather, who, if they are over fifty-five 
years old, will be admitted even if they cannot read in any 
language, provided all the other requirements of the immigra¬ 
tion law are met. It at first seems strange that in a country 
which requires all its native-born children to attend school until 
they are fourteen or sixteen years old, the laws should permit a 
foreign family of man, wife, children, father and mother, grand- 


122 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


father and grandmother, to enter when only one member of this 
large family can read in any language. But there is only one 
reason for permitting this—the people of the United States be¬ 
lieve that home and the family are even more important than 
education. 

26. What the State does for the Home. As we have seen in 
Chapter IV, all powers not specifically reserved to the national 
government by the Constitution belong to the states. The help 
that the people have asked from the state has been of many 
kinds. States which have many large towns and cities have 
had to pass more laws dealing with home than those whose 
communities are largely rural, for the nearer together people 
live the more they interfere with each other. Most of the 
states have passed laws to help the homes in these respects: 

1. Make a legal home possible by laws in regard to marriage and 
divorce. 

2. Protect children by laws stating how orphans may be adopted, 
under what conditions they may be taken from their own homes and 
cared for elsewhere. 

3. Protect the welfare of children by laws to prevent child labor, to 
require school attendance, to prevent the sale of cigarettes or liquor 
to minors. 

4. Protect home ownership by means of laws requiring deeds of sale 
and mortgages to be recorded in a government office. 

5. Protect renters of homes by means of regulations in regard to the 
paying of rent, the signing of leases, etc. 

6. Protect the health of the home by means of laws dealing with the 
water supply, sewage disposal, the milk supply, inspection of restau¬ 
rants, and stores where food is sold. 

7. Protect the safety of the home by means of supervision of electric 
wiring and gas piping, by creating fire and police departments, providing 
for inspection of buildings to see that building materials are of proper 
material and strength. 

8. Secure attractiveness of the home by planning wide streets, setting 
out trees, providing parks in congested areas, and in many other ways. 

9. Assist in the prosperity of the home by supervising savings banks 
and insurance companies, setting up standards of weights and measures, 
regulating electric-light and gas companies to see that service is of a 
certain grade and that prices are not excessive. 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


I2 3 



As we have seen, work life has changed home life so greatly 
that thousands of people have to live in hotels and boarding¬ 
houses, eat in restaurants, buy food from bakeries, send their 
clothing to public laundries, read in public libraries, and 
entertain their friends in clubs. One of the many laws made 
necessary by such changes in home conditions is illustrated 


Unless the home is protected from fire, burglars, and intruders families will 
not work hard to earn books, rare rugs, and comfortable furniture 

by the law passed by one state dealing with bakeries and 
bakery products. This law included such requirements as 
the following: 

The floors, walls, and ceilings of every bakery, the 
equipment used in the handling or preparation of bakery 
products or their ingredients, and the wagons, boxes, bas¬ 
kets, and other receptacles in which bakery products are 
transported, shall be kept by the owner or operator of the 
bakery or by the distributor of said products in a clean and 
sanitary condition and at all times free from dust, flies, 
and other contaminating matter. 








124 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


No owner or operator of a bakery shall require or permit 
any person affected with any contagious, infectious, or 
other disease or physical ailment which may render such 
employment detrimental to the public health ... to work 
therein. 

No ingredient shall be used in any bakery product likely 
to deceive the consumer or which lessens its nutritive value 
without being plainly labeled, branded, or tagged, or hav¬ 
ing a sign making plain to the purchaser or consumer the 
actual ingredients. . . . 

27. The Home and the Community. As we pointed out in 
Chapter IV, most of the laws which affect the people both at 
work and at home are made by the state, not by the community. 
The voters of every community, however, help choose repre¬ 
sentatives to make these state laws. They also elect local offi¬ 
cials such as village trustees, or selectmen, or aldermen, who 
make the laws of the community. Because of the importance of 
the community, it is discussed more at length later. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter through as a whole and make a brief resume of it. 

2 . Copy the following outline in your loose-leaf civics notebook, leav¬ 
ing one or two blank leaves after each filled sheet, on which to set down 
the facts gleaned. Perhaps a somewhat different outline will be better 
for your community. If so, let a committee of the class be appointed to 
prepare one. 

OUTLINE FOR STUDY OF THE HOME 

I. Advantages of Owning a Home. 

Show that home-owners are 

1. Not at the mercy of the landlord. 

2. Have a definite reason for taking a part in community affairs. 

3. Can borrow on a home that is owned and cannot on one that is rented. 

II. The House and its Exterior. 

1. The house should be attractive to look at from every angle; that is, 
the back yard should be as attractive as the side yard. Find pic¬ 
tures of the right kind and the wrong kind of back yards and side 
yards. Show how a few dollars’ worth of shrubbery will make 
marvelous changes. Show also the value of latticework covered 
with vines. Use the camera if possible. 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


125 

2. Fences are not obsolete, but must be kept in good condition. Make 

a drawing to show the right and wrong kind of fences. 

3. Shade trees add to the value of property, but should not be allowed 

to exclude all sunlight from the home. Make a simple study of the 
shade trees of your community; find out 

a. Where young trees can be purchased. 

b. Cost of buying. 

c. Length of time required to grow to shade dimensions. 

d. Care necessary. 

e. Pests to which they are subject. How to prevent and how to ex¬ 

terminate. (Write to your state university, or to the agricultural 
department of your state, or to the Department of Agriculture 
at Washington.) 

/. How they may be set out to best advantage. 

4. The right kind of piazza can contribute to health and comfort, 

especially where there are young children. What is the best loca¬ 
tion for a piazza? What is the cost of a screened-in porch? In 
what way does a piazza bring the family nearer the community? 

5. A vegetable or flower garden requires careful planning. Show that 

a. The vegetable garden may be made a thrift device, or a patriotic 

device, or a health device, or all three. 

b. The flower garden may be made a means of outdoor exercise and 

of beautifying the interior of the house, as well as of giving 
pleasure to neighbors and passers-by. 

III. The House and its Different Rooms. 

1. Bring to class a plan of the kind of home you would like to live in. 

Be ready to draw all or any part of this on the blackboard. 

2. The living-room is the principal family meeting place. Tell what 

takes place in the living-room. Do the living-rooms that you are 
most familiar with have bookshelves, a convenient table, easy-chairs, 
and working-chairs ? What other features, such as fireplace, plants, 
rugs, pictures, do they have ? 

3. The dining-room is the second most important room. The meal at 

night—whether supper or dinner—is the real family meal. Discuss 
these suggestions for the evening meal: 

a. Make the evening meal each day a little different from that of any 

other. 

b. Save the best stories to tell at the table. 

c. Company manners should be everyday manners at the table. 

What are company manners? 

d. Take turns in serving. Take turns in being hostess. 

e. When table decorations are suitable. 

/. Have at least one attractive picture in the dining-room, but never 
of food. The evening mealtime is usually a leisurely occasion, 
and the right picture will add greatly to the pleasure of the hour. 


126 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


4. The old-fashioned kitchen was a family room, but the modern kitchen 

is chiefly a workshop. 

a. Discuss the need of convenient arrangement. 

b. In most cases are all the members of a family represented in the 

kitchen ? 

c. Why is the refrigerator one of the most important parts of a 

kitchen ? 

d. What is the outlook from the windows? 

5. The bedroom is often the one room in which each person can do as 

he pleases. Discuss the various ways in which a person’s tastes and 
hobbies can be expressed. 

6. The bathroom should be considered from the point of view of clean¬ 

liness and thrift. What about floors, walls, heating, supply of 
hot water ? 

7. Clothes closets make for convenience and orderliness. Explain what 

arrangement is best suited to the ordinary family’s needs. 

8. Hallways usually tell the stranger what the house is. Discuss them 

from the point of view of convenience and attractiveness. 

9. Inspect your cellar, note the following, and suggest improvements: 

a. Windows. c. Stored-away articles. 

b. Rubbish. d. Furnace and ash cans. 

IV. Making the Home Attractive. 

Explain how the following items may make for attractiveness: 

1. Exterior: paint, yard, trees, shrubbery, piazza. 

2. Interior: windows, wall paper, draperies, furniture, fireplaces, books, 

pictures, flowers. 

V. The Home Spirit. 

1. When do all the members of the family come together? Describe an 

ordinary evening of the home. 

2. Does the family have special evenings just for the home people — 

games, music, talks? What about birthdays and holidays? 

3. What periodicals come into the home regularly? What is done with 

the old periodicals? 

4. What are the events outside of work that take the different members 

of the family away from the home ? 

5. Discuss the fact that success in the outside world depends largely on 

the ability to meet and mingle with people easily. 

6. Show that the spirit of service can be cultivated in the home better 

than anywhere else. 

VI. The Home and the Community. 

1. How many members of the family earn their living? What is the 

work? How does this work life affect the plans of the household 
—hours for meals, etc.? 

2. In what ways do all the members of the family come in contact with 

the business side of the community (bank, post office, stores, etc.) ? 


AMERICA A NATION OF HOMES 


127 


3. In what ways can the home aid the community through the church? 

4. What amusements and recreations are obtained outside the home ? 

5. What does the house you live in add to the attractiveness of the 

community? 

6. What entertaining is done in the home? Give ways in which this can 

be done successfully. 

7. How can every family have a say in the community affairs that affect 

their homes? 

8. Discuss hospitality. 

VII. Substitute Homes. 

1. Learn as much as possible about the hotels and boarding-houses of 

the community. Who uses them? What home features do they 
have? 

2. If your community has an orphan home or any special home for the 

sick or unfortunate, find out (a) who supports it, (6) whether it 
is attractive, (c) in what ways it is like a private home. 

VIII. Home Democracy. 

1. Emphasize independence within the home—never so great anywhere 

else. Contrast life in a boarding-house or hotel in this respect. 

2. It will be helpful to study different types of homes and note that 

a. Every family has a leader. 

b. Every family has to cooperate in many ways. 

c. Every member of the family has certain rights and certain duties. 

d. In case of emergency everybody’s rights are curtailed. 

IX. A Home Map. 

1. In connection with Chapter I outline maps of your community were 
prepared. On one of these insert the homes of your community (or 
neighborhood). Show where hotels, boarding-houses, crowded 
tenements, single houses, etc. are located. Sketch in roughly places 
of work, surrounding hills or fields, etc. Try to show what an 
aeroplane would reveal of the home part of your community. 

3. A citizen of Philadelphia boasted that his city was a "city of homes” 
because more than half the population live in single dwellings. Explain 
why it is easier to make the right kind of homes of "single dwellings” 
than of four-tenement and five-tenement houses. 

4. Has anything like the following ever been true of your city or of 
any city with which you are familiar ? 

In a tenement visited "two rooms on the top floor were given up to the 
raising of fowls, and the floors and parts of the walls were covered with filth; 
in another house the door from the inside cellar stairs was pushed open during 
an inspection and a goat stalked in; in yet another chickens were kept in a 
fenced-in corner of a third-story room used at the same time as a kitchen and 
a bedroom.” 


128 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Trace the responsibility for such conditions as this. If you knew of any 
such tenement what could you personally do to start changing the 
wrong conditions? 

5 . The United States Constitution is printed at the back of this 
book. Make a list of the items that directly or indirectly deal with 
home life. Be able to explain in what ways each of these items affects 
your life. 

6. Every state, usually through the secretary of state, issues a manual 
or handbook which gives the names and duties of the state bureaus, 
departments, commissions, and the officials who are elected by the 
people or appointed by the government. The civics class should own a 
copy of this manual, or if this is impossible some members of the 
class should be appointed to consult the library copy and make a list 
to be recopied by each student in his notebook. From this compile a 
list of departments and officials connected with the home life of the 
people. Discuss the work of these. 

7 . Probably every state has some laws that give unwise help to the 
home. What unwise laws does your state have? 

8. What kind of assistance or protection do the homes of your com¬ 
munity need which they do not get? Is this because there is not the 
right kind of law or because present laws are not enforced ? 

9 . Compare the homes of today with those of the pioneers. Can you 
tell in what ways present homes are inferior to these early homes and in 
what ways they are superior ? 

10 . With great care analyze your home or the average home to find out 

a. What part the family makes for itself. 

b. What part is made possible or is assisted by private organizations. 

c. What part government makes possible or assists. 

11. Because of the many conveniences of the modern home, the family 
has more leisure than formerly. How does your family use this spare 
time? Re-read pages 50-51 and discuss the best ways of using leisure 
in the home. 

12 . Turn back to Chapter III and tell what kind of homes you would 
expect the different workers described there to have. 

Note to Teacher. In connection with Exercise 5 above, some of the 
work on the Constitution outlined in the Appendix (pp. xvii-xx) should 
be taken up now. (See note on page 96.) 


CHAPTER VI 

WHERE WORK MEETS HOME—THE COMMUNITY 

1 . What Towns, Cities, and Villages really are. The com¬ 
munity is the place where work and home meet, for the simple 
reason that without work there can be no homes and the two 
go always together. Along the route of the Panama Canal sev¬ 
eral years ago there were beautiful little towns consisting of 
homes, hotels, attractive streets, little shops. But now they 
have disappeared, and Gorgona, Bas Obispo, Las Cascadas, 
are names only. The government built these towns, and the 
government destroyed them. It seems a reckless waste of 
material and time to build towns and then to tear them down. 
But the canal was finished, and the work that drew thousands 
of Americans to the Canal Zone was completed. No new work 
took its place. Therefore the homes, hotels, and boarding¬ 
houses were empty. In Alaska today there are cities of streets 
full of empty houses—cities that have died because the gold 
mines which drew thousands of people to them have been 
abandoned. In one city where for a time there were fifty thou¬ 
sand people, now there are only about five hundred. It is the 
same story everywhere: home-seekers must always be work¬ 
seekers, and where a group of people make work a community 
grows up. 

2 . Work the Starting-Point of Every Community. The 

starting-point of every community is work of some kind. Of¬ 
ten it is some manufacturing enterprise, as in the following 
cases: 

i. In April, 1906, the region in which Gary, Indiana, is now situated, 
was "a waste of rolling sand dunes, sparsely covered with scrub oak and 
interspersed with ponds and marshes. Three years later there was a 
great steel plant capable of employing 14,000 men, equipped with a 

129 


130 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


made-to-order harbor for the great ore freighters, and a town of 
12,000 inhabitants.” It also had among other things: 


6 hotels 

A commercial club 

2 public schools 

3 daily papers 
46 lawyers 

24 doctors 
6 dentists 


15 miles of paved streets 
25 miles of cement sidewalks 
$2,000,000 worth of residences 
A sewer system 
Water and gas plants 
Electric lighting 
A national and a state bank 


2. In 1867 at a crossroads in Maine a small textile mill was built. 
Later other mills were built, and by 1919 the straggling settlement of a 
dozen houses had become Sanford, a town of 13,000. 

3. In 1880 there were not ten houses to be seen within sight of what 
in three years’ time became a town of 3000 people called Pullman 
City. This sudden growing of a community was due to the building of 
great factories by the Pullman Company, makers of special sleeping- 
cars and parlor cars. They not only built factories, but houses, streets, 
stores, so that without waste of time people could be induced to become 
workers in the factories etc. After a time this community was annexed 
to Chicago, but it still remains a community which centers in one 
vast industry. 

4. In the early years of 1800 there was a small village of about 
14 dwelling-houses situated in a little river valley in New York. This 
was Kingsboro, the only industry being the manufacture of tin. The 
tin articles were carried up the Mohawk to be exchanged for wheat, pelts, 
and other things which the people had to offer. The Indians and 
trappers gave deerskins in payment. More of these skins were obtained 
than could be conveniently made use of, for they were suitable only for 
breeches and jackets. After a time, however, someone devised a method 
of treating the skins that made it possible to use them for mittens. Still 
later other skins were used and gloves invented. By 1858 the hamlet 
had become a town of 500 dwellings and 3000 people, now called Glov- 
ersville. For many years the city has been known all over the world 
as the great glove city. 

By no means is the work which proves the starting-point of 
a community always a factory. Often it is a mine or fertile 
land or a location which makes a center for traffic. Many a 
great city is today great merely because its first work was pro¬ 
viding a location for the shifting of freight and the repairing of 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


I 3 i 

cars and engines. Every person knows of many communities 
like the following: 

1. The origin of Topeka, Kansas, has been described in these words: 
"Here was a great river, plenty of water, and, above all, the two great 
trails of the continent, Fort Leavenworth and St. Joe to Santa Fe, and 
Independence to California, crossed at this point.” 

2. Washburn, North Dakota, was started by a man who knew how to 
organize more than one kind of work life. He "purchased a tract of 



There are two reasons why this community is a prosperous manufacturing 
city—the river supplies transportation facilities and also water for steam 

power 


115,000 acres on the Missouri and built a railroad to a point on the 
river about 40 miles above Bismarck. Near the town which sprang up 
at the terminus of the railroad he opened a coal mine which soon had 
a producing and shipping capacity of 30 carloads per day. On the 
river he placed some small light-draft steamboats and barges to trans¬ 
port lumber and merchandise to the villages and farms up river and 
to bring down grain to the Washburn elevators.” 

3 . Communities are kept Alive by Means of Work. A com¬ 
munity, then, is built around work. But this is not all: it is 
kept alive by means of work. As the work life diminishes, the 
community dwindles. In New York State in 1828 a community 





13 2 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

grew up around a cotton mill and a woolen mill. Later the 
water power failed and both mills were closed, so that by 1910 
the population had dwindled to 750, and by 1920 to 349. There 
are many of these communities that are gradually dying be¬ 
cause there is no work life to hold them together. But there are 
a good many communities that seem to flourish without work. 
Probably every person can think of towns and villages with 


Because its location makes it a center of traffic across the continent, Chicago is 
today one of the world’s greatest cities. (Courtesy of Marshall Field & Co.) 

streets full of comfortable houses, but no factories, farms, or 
mines—only a few stores to supply food, clothing, and the 
other necessities. It is true, however, that work made these 
communities possible in the first place and holds them together 
year after year. A community that seems to exist without work 
life is probably living on stored-up work—work that has been 
done in the past. Stored-up work is money in the bank, money 
in houses and land, and other kinds of property. 

4 . Some Communities live on Stored-up Work. In Con¬ 
necticut there is a small village with comfortable homes, a post 
office, several stores, and a railroad station. The money which 
built most of the homes was earned by the parents and grand- 










WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


133 


parents of the present village people. At that time there was a 
flourishing shipyard in the village, where sailing vessels were 
made. After many years the demand for ships ceased, and the 
shipyard became only a memory. But the ship workers had 
built fine homes with their money and had saved much of it. 
Their sons and daughters inherited the homes and the money. 



A home but no community. This family is waiting for irrigation to make it 
possible to grow crops. (Courtesy of the Country Gentleman) 


There are many other villages and many homes in every town 
and city that are similarly supported by the work of the past. 
But such communities and homes cannot last indefinitely. 
When the stored-up work is used or wasted, it cannot be re¬ 
placed except by the one means of work. A community must 
die unless some new work is introduced. 

5 . Communities that live on the Work of Other Communities. 
There is still another kind of community—the kind that lives 
on the present work of other communities. This seems at first 
a little puzzling. The village of Natural Bridge, Virginia, con¬ 
sists of scenery, a hotel, a store, and a cluster of homes. It is 
the Natural Bridge that has "made” the little village. The 






i 3 4 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

people earn their living by attending to the needs of the tourists 
who come to see this natural wonder. The money which the 
tourists pay in hotel bills, garage fees, and laundry bills repre¬ 
sents work that is being done in the factories and on the farms 
of distant towns and cities. Saratoga, New York State, is an¬ 
other of the many places which have lived for many years al¬ 
most wholly on the work of other communities. Because of the 


Everyone can think of villages and towns that seem to have no work life. In 
such cases the community is probably living on the stored-up work of the past 

mineral springs, whose waters are health-giving, hotels and 
boarding-houses were built so that people might come to rest 
and drink the water. Many other states have communities 
whose population is made up of health and rest seekers. 

Sometimes the center of a community will be a college or an 
academy. The doctors, storekeepers, carpenters, teachers, de¬ 
rive their living directly or indirectly from the school. This in 
turn derives the funds for its support partly from the work of 
men and women who lived many years before and left their 
money to the school, and partly from the present work of 
parents of the students in different parts of the country. 



WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


135 



Considered from the point of view of work, one of the 
strangest communities is Washington, in the District of Co¬ 
lumbia. It is a city of workers, but there are no farms or mines 
or factories. It was the money of the pioneers of the West, of 
the hard-working people of the East, that made these buildings 
possible in the first place, and it is the work of the people in 
every part of the nation today that keeps Washington full of 


There is no community here, for there are no opportunities. The soil is thin 
and poor, and the farm was long ago abandoned 

government officials who are busy doing the things that the 
people want government to do for them. 

If the time should come that the whole work life of the 
nation is slowed down, if there are fewer kinds of work and 
fewer opportunities for workers, then there will inevitably be 
fewer communities centering about schools and colleges; fewer 
communities that exist because of their healthful climate and 
beautiful scenery. 

6. The First Step in Studying a Community. Since it is the 
people who make the communities through the work they de¬ 
velop, to know what any community is one needs first to know 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


136 


around what kinds of work it centers. Each community is de¬ 
pendent on one or several of these basal forms of work life: 


5. Fisheries 


1. Farms 

2. Mines 

3. Quarries 

4. Lumber camps 


6. Factories (where the 
products of 1-5 are 
made use of) 


7. Transportation (by means of which the products of 1-6 are 
distributed) 

8. Stores (where the products of 1-6 are distributed) 

In some communities farms are the principal source of work, 
in others it is a single factory, in still others only a group of 
stores. Then there are communities that count their factories 
and other places of work by the hundreds and even thousands. 
Recently Birmingham, Alabama, had 531 industries engaged 
in manufacturing 1496 different products, Philadelphia had 
over 6000 workshops, New York City almost ten times^as many. 
In some cases all the work life of a community centers in the 
railroad and freight yards—a junction where several railroads 
meet. In some communities, as we have seen, the chief work by 
which the community is supported is that of the past, but this 
represents some one of the classes of work listed above. 

7 . The Secondary Workers of the Community. But not all 
the workers of any community are to be found on farms, or in 
mines, quarries, lumber camps, or engaged in fishing, or em¬ 
ployed in factories or stores, or on railroads. There are car¬ 
penters, bricklayers, street cleaners, truck drivers, doctors, 
nurses, and scores of other workers. These are called sec¬ 
ondary workers—workers whose work would disappear if the 
farms, mines, and factories vanished. They help make all 
other kinds of work more efficient or more agreeable. But every 
change in any one of the chief forms of work affects all the 
others. If the farmers raise smaller crops the railroads need 
fewer helpers; the plumbers, the doctors, the dentists, all have 
less work because there is less money. Thus the prosperity of 
every community depends on a certain few basal kinds of work, 
which may or may not be a part of their own community. 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


137 

8 . Indispensable Aids to the Work Life of Every Com¬ 
munity. To build up a sure and efficient work life in a com¬ 
munity means a good deal more than providing places of work. 
One should always think of the work part of his community 
and the work part of his own life as consisting of 

1. The place where work is done: factory, mine, store, office, ship, 
farm, or street. 

2. The streets or roads, connecting the place of work with the main 
highways to other communities and with the nearest railroad station. 

3. The telegraph office, which connects one’s community with the 
whole world. 

4. The local and long-distance telephone systems, which connect 
work places with homes, stores, and offices. 

5. The post office, railroad station, and express-company offices, by 
means of which letters, money, and goods may be sent to and received 
from all parts of the world. 

6. The savings bank, in which money can be placed for safe-keeping 
and from which money may be borrowed to build roads, bridges, etc. 

7. The trust company or state or national bank, in which money can 
be placed to be drawn out by means of check. 

8. The insurance company, which insures the place of work against 
fires and the worker against accident. 

9. The fire department, which protects the place of work from fire. 

10. The police department, which protects the place of work, the 
bank, the post office, the railroad station, and the express company from 
burglary and violence. 

11. The newspaper, which gives news about work conditions and con¬ 
tains advertisements of insurance companies and banks. 

12. The power station, which makes electricity and sends this over 
cables and wires to factories, stores, and streets for light, heat, and 
power. The gas company, which provides gas for lighting and heating. 

13. The system of waterworks, by which water for places of work is 
supplied and by which refuse is carried away through the sewer. 

14. The schools, in which children are prepared to become workers. 

15. The library, in which the worker will find special help in making 
his work successful. 

16. Stores, in which one can buy the things necessary to one’s work. 

17. Electric cars and jitneys, which connect homes and places of 
work. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


138 

A complete community has access to all these helps, but many 
communities are so widely scattered that to draw a circle that 
would include all these things would require many square miles. 
Perhaps the power station that sends electricity into one’s place 
of work is in another community miles away. The newspaper 
may also be published in a distant town. The insurance com¬ 
pany may be far away. But if the worker benefits from these 
helps, they are really a part of his community. 

Look for these different helps to work life in your own com¬ 
munity, and whenever you pass through or visit another town 
or city look for the buildings and offices that will tell you how 
many of these efficiency helps it has. In addition to the helps 
mentioned above, some communities have 

1. Piers and wharves, where vessels may load and unload goods. 

2. Canal locks, at whose docks canal barges load and unload. 

3. Storage warehouses and grain elevators, where goods may be stored 
until they can be shipped by train or steamer. 

4. Wireless stations, for the receiving and sending of messages. 

5. Landing-fields, for mail airplanes. 

6. Fairgrounds and exposition buildings, where the products of farm 
and factories are exhibited. 

9. All the Workers benefit from these Helps. All these are 
things that no worker could provide for himself. They have to 
be secured by groups of people, but every individual benefits 
from them. No poet has written poems to roads, railroads, or 
savings banks. Towns do not often erect fountains or plant 
trees in appreciation of what telegraph and fire-insurance com¬ 
panies have done for them. But what these things have accom¬ 
plished in making people comfortable and happy is like a great 
drama or painting. And the story of how roads were built, how 
savings banks were made possible, how the nation has been 
covered with a network of steel rails and copper wires, is a tale 
of marvel that poets might well tell in verse. 

Every person is dependent on these things for the success of 
his work life. It is not only the factory owner who must have 
well-paved streets over which to send his goods to the railroad, 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


139 


well-equipped railroads to bring raw materials to the factory 
and to carry away finished goods, the post office and telephone 
and telegraph through which his orders are given and received, 
banks through which he pays his bills and obtains loans—the 
factory owner must have all these conveniences, but the isolated 
farmer, the mill employee, the plumber, the carpenter, the 
stenographer, profit most by them. A defect in any one of these 



<© George R. King 


A California community of hotels and summer cottages which lives on the 
work of other communities 


conveniences may deprive a person of the chance to work. Even 
if the worker never rides over the great stretches of roads and 
railroads, never sends telegrams over the wires, never puts 
money in the savings banks, still each day’s work is affected 
by these things. 

10. The Home Part of the Community. Impressive as are 
many of the places of work, we ought never for a moment to 
forget that "the streets are there to lead to the homes and 
the stores there to supply the homes, that for the homes all 







140 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


mills grind or weave, all wheels turn, all traffic exists, and all 
business goes on.” Just as the work part consists of much more 
than the places of work, so the home part consists of much 
besides the houses in which the people live. There was a time 
when a single home was almost a community in itself. Wash¬ 
ington’s home at Mount Vernon was farm, factory, and com¬ 
munity, as the visitor can today discover for himself. Near the 
house is a carpenter shop, a spinning-house, barns for tools and 
cattle, and servant’s quarters. There were acres of pasture, 
gardens, and timber. The food, the timber, the wool, were all 
produced and prepared on the place. The house was large 
enough for the entertainment of guests. The easy access to the 
river and the woods and hills belonging to the estate added 
opportunities for recreation and pleasure. 

11. The Modern Home has overflowed into the Community. 
Today thousands of American homes are of a kind that Wash¬ 
ington never dreamed of. These are tenement-house and 
apartment-house homes, scores of which could be built on the 
Mount Vernon estate. It would be disheartening to know that 
American families could be anything but miserable in such 
places if it were not for the fact that while the apartment 
and tenement house are a kind of shrunken home, yet much 
of what made up the home at Mount Vernon has overflowed 
and scattered, but can still be found somewhere in the com¬ 
munity. 

The home life of America has changed, but it has not disap¬ 
peared, and it will not disappear. As the size of the homes has 
decreased, first one part of home life and then another has been 
driven outside the home, but most of it has not been allowed to 
die. In some cases it is stronger and more powerful outside 
than within the home proper. A foreign visitor to Chicago was 
distressed to find so many people living in rows of monotonous¬ 
shaped houses with pitiful little front yards and unsightly 
backgrounds " where a smoking factory rose so like an affront 
and a threat that life there suddenly seemed terrible.” But one 
Sunday he went to an afternoon concert at Orchestra Hall, 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


141 

which was filled with people from these homes. He searched 
their faces as they streamed from the hall in the early evening, 
and found them eager and happy. On another Sunday he 
watched the throngs who visited the Art Institute, and again 
he found the faces full of content and happiness. 

The kind of beauty that the music hall and the art museum 
afforded, no ordinary family could have in its home. In spite 
of the fact that most homes have few books, more families than 
ever before are today readers of newspapers, magazines, and 
books. This is because in the community outside the home 
there are each year more public libraries. 

12 . The Parts of Home Life that have overflowed into the 
Community. The home part of a community which must be 
looked for outside the home varies in different communities, 
but usually includes some or all of the following: 

1. Schools, where children are taught instead of in the home. 

2. Playgrounds and parks, which take the place of yards. 

3. Libraries, where people may read and from which they may take 
books into their homes. 

4. Restaurants, where families and workers may eat. 

5. Hotels, in the dining-room and parlors of which one can enter¬ 
tain his friends. 

6. Food shops and bakeries, where families may buy ready-cooked 
foods to carry home. 

7. Laundries, where clothing, rugs, and linen can be cleansed. 

8. Storage warehouses, which take the place of attics and sheds. 

9. Museums and picture galleries, where one can enjoy beautiful 
things that he cannot have in his home. 

10. Concert halls, where one can hear music that he cannot hope to 
have in his home. 

11. Clubhouses and associations, where one can take exercise. 

12. Hospitals, where one can go when ill. 

13 . Indispensable Aids to the Home Life of Every Com¬ 
munity. The community also contains many things that are 
not a part of the home, but are necessary to its existence and 
comfort. Some of these things are the same as those we found 
necessary to make work life possible (see page 137): 


142 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


1. Streets and roads, which connect homes with stores, places of 
work, and the helps to home life. 

2. Trolley cars and jitneys, which make it possible for people to get 
to and from the home easily. 

3. The post office, which keeps the home people together no matter 
how widely they are scattered. 

4. The telephone and the telegraph, which save the time of the 
home people and keep them in touch with work life. 

5. Stores, which sell the things to make home comfortable and 
convenient. 

6. The reservoir and the pumping-station, which make a constant 
supply of water in the home possible and carry away polluted water. 

7. Power stations, which furnish electricity for light and heat; gas 
works, which furnish gas for light and heat. 

8. Community centers, schools, and libraries, where one gets many 
helps in home-making. 

9. The church, which gives help to all and especially to those who 
are ill or discouraged. 

10. Savings banks and cooperative banks, which help families own 
their homes. 

11. National banks and trust companies, which enable families to 
pay their home bills with checks instead of money. 

12. Insurance companies, which insure against fire and burglary. 

13. The fire department, which protects the home from destruction 
by fire. 

14. The police department, which protects the home from burglars 
and mischief-makers. 

15. The newspaper, which brings to the home news of all the hap¬ 
penings that affect the home’s welfare. 

16. The "radio,” which brings the community into the home. 

14 . Carrying Home into Places of Work. So important do 
the people believe the home to be that they have even carried 
some of it into places of work. In the great shoe city of Endi- 
cott, New York, over one of the groups of factory buildings 
swings the sign "Your Home.” It is a building in which many 
of the things that the home stands for are to be found: reading- 
rooms, lounging-rooms, dining-rooms, kitchens. Here the girls 
who work in the factories come to eat and rest at noon, and 
after work to spend the evening, making use of the kitchenettes 



WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 143 

to prepare simple meals for themselves and friends. Many of 
the large department stores have rest rooms, libraries, and rec¬ 
reation rooms for their employees, which they are free to use 
as they would their own homes. One machine-shop company 
has a country club for its employees, where they can have all 
the pleasures of a private country estate. Several factories have 


One of the home conveniences which many industrial plants have is a 
restaurant where breakfast and luncheon are served at cost 

nurseries—bright, pleasant rooms with toys, beds, food, and 
trained attendants—where mothers can leave the children to be 
cared for while they are at work. 

Some factories not only provide a touch of home in their 
buildings but add something to the homes of the workers. This 
is by means of the trained nurses who attend to employees who 
are taken ill during work hours and also visit the homes of the 
employees when needed. A rubber factory which employs large 
numbers of women has rest rooms, dining-rooms, and a store, 
in which it sells sugar, flour, and other groceries at cost to its 
employees. 








144 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Perhaps when employers have added home advantages to 
their places of work they have not deliberately said to them¬ 
selves: "These workers have only fractions of homes, and the 
nation will be imperiled if the homes keep shrinking. We will 
therefore open rest rooms, dining-rooms, kitchenettes, to make 
up for our employees’ scanty home life.” But men would not 
add home touches to work life if they did not carry about in 
their minds and hearts a love of the home and a realization of 
what it means to the nation. 

15 . Substitute Homes are a Part of the Community. In most 
communities there are substitute homes for those who are 
temporarily or permanently without a real home. These are 
boarding-houses and hotels. No substitute could ever have 
the genuine attractiveness of a real home, but it is the Amer¬ 
ican way to carry as much of the home as possible into every 
part of living. Many a hotel today provides all the conven¬ 
iences that the home has—attractive rooms, good wholesome 
food, parlors where one may meet and entertain his friends, 
music, pictures, warmth, and good service. In one San Fran¬ 
cisco hotel a day school is conducted on the roof for the 
children of families living in the hotel, and a playground is 
also provided. 

16 . The Places where People get together. Home and work 
absorb the greater part of the day, but with most people at 
least a few hours are spent in clubs, theaters, parks, community 
centers, or other places where people do things or enjoy things 
together. There was a time when homes could be made spacious 
enough to become the gathering-places of friends and acquaint¬ 
ances. Washington’s home at Mount Vernon and Jefferson’s at 
Monticello were the center of social life that communities now 
afford. In a New England village there is still standing a roomy 
old house so built that upstairs all the chambers could be 
thrown into one to make a big dance hall. Even when homes 
were not so spacious as this, they had roomy barns where 
huskings were held, big kitchens where sugarings-off and other 
parties took place. Times have not changed essentials. People 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


145 

still have gatherings, but most of them are outside the home, 
although some families in the country and a few in the cities 
have houses large enough for entertaining large groups of people. 



One of New York city’s substitute homes—a skyscraper hotel. (Courtesy of 
Samuel Chamberlain and the New York Times) 

The result is that in every community there are many places 
where the people get together. In describing the life of Chicago 
workers a writer said that no sooner had they reached their 
homes at the close of work and washed the soot from their 
faces than "a goodly portion of them hasten back to the heart 





146 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


of the city to the clubs, theaters, restaurants, and hotels.” The 
getting-together side of life is a very natural and necessary 
part. Street boys do things in gangs; business men talk business 
in clubs; people gather in churches, in concert halls, on street 
corners, to enjoy things or do things in groups. There is no 
country in the world with so many telephones, automobiles, 
subways, elevateds, express trains, and other means by which 



* © Allen N. Hoxsie 

Saturday afternoon in a town whose work life centers in stores to which the 
farmers come once a week to buy supplies 


people get together quickly. We have every kind of convenience 
for going and returning rapidly. It is these things that make 
America today different from every nation of the past and a 
little different from any other nation of the present. 

Today the people come together in a hundred ways. Some 
of these are 


1. School 

2. Church 

3. Community centers 

4. Playgrounds 

5. Clubs 

6. Labor unions and similar or¬ 

ganizations 


7. Boards of trade 

8. County fairs; city and town 

expositions 

9. Pageants and historic cele¬ 

brations 

10. Baseball and football games 

11. Political and patriotic rallies 





WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 



U 7 

In every community there are halls, parks, and open squares 
where mass meetings are frequently held to interest the people 
in some special event or cause. Even the coming together of 
people in railroad stations, trains, and stores is a valuable part 
of modern life, for in these places there are always opportunities 
for learning through observation about the real America. 


Although this home is in the heart of a city the family has found a way of 
entertaining friends without the aid of clubhouses, hotels, or theaters 

17 . The Modern Clubhouse and the Community Center. The 

modern club is one of the most convenient means by which the 
people can get together. There are very grand clubs for "big 
business” men and very simple but convenient and attractive 
clubs for ordinary people. These are gathering-places where 
men and women entertain their friends or meet to talk business 
and to discuss matters of interest. Often the only "home” 
part of the day for busy people is the lunch hour at the club¬ 
house. The club brings into work life home conveniences and 




148 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



Clubhouses are an important part of the modern community. Here men come 
to rest, read, discuss business and the affairs of the community 

comforts that the home itself could not bring, for clubhouses 
can be built in the heart of the work section of a community 
where they may be reached quickly by busy people. They have 
kitchen, dining-rooms, and serving-rooms equipped to serve 



















WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


149 


meals at a moment’s notice, so that members can invite their 
associates and friends to eat without making arrangements in 
advance. The club also provides newspapers and magazines, 
barber shops, and baths—some of the things that the ideal home 
provides and many which it does not. 

The modern community center is in some respects a club¬ 
house for all the people. These have reading-rooms, baths, 
gymnasiums, rooms where games can be played, halls that can 
be hired, and attractive lunch rooms. In an Indiana community 
center toward which the farmers of the county contributed 
liberally, there was an average monthly attendance of two 
thousand, those who came ranging from six to eighty-six years 
of age. More than twelve hundred baths were taken there each 
month and more than a thousand meals served. 

18 . The People do not wait for Government to come to their 
Assistance. As we have already pointed out, the greater part 
of the work of making a community safe, comfortable, and 
beautiful is done by the people unofficially. In the United 
States the people seldom wait for government to fix up a bad 
condition or to attend to an emergency unless it can best be 
done in this way. Even in the case of the duties that are usually 
turned over to government officials, if these prove slow or 
inadequate the people come to the rescue. Every community 
affords many illustrations of this kind. 

1. Today road-making is left almost entirely to government, but back 
in 1800 it was found that "the heaviest taxes that could have been laid 
would not have sufficed to build half the roads and bridges that com¬ 
merce required.” So private companies were formed for building roads 
and maintaining them in proper condition. All the wide-awake farmers 
and business men were eager to invest in these roads, for every mile of 
road meant money in their pockets. By 1811 in New York State 137 
roads had been started by these private companies. To be sure, these 
companies did not make a present of the roads to the state. They set up 
tollgates and made charges for the use of them. But the roads benefited 
the whole state and nation the moment they were ready for use. 

2. As early as 1657 Boston felt the need of a "town house and 
exchange” in the central market place. A private citizen willed money 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


150 

for such a purpose, but this was not sufficient, so a few of the business 
men formed themselves into a volunteer committee and canvassed for 
subscriptions. 

3. Today in every part of the nation private citizens are giving money 
for the building of community houses. Sometimes it is one person who 
makes the gift, sometimes it is a small group of business men; in other 
cases a small group start the movement and most of the people help. 

4. In Boston one year the policemen struck and left the city unpro¬ 
tected. Within an hour private citizens rushed to be sworn in and act 
as volunteer policemen. It was believed that the firemen would also 
strike, so hundreds of young business men volunteered to act as firemen 
as long as needed. 

5. In Cincinnati, before there was adequate legal enforcement of the 
housing laws, a group of private citizens formed a Better Housing 
League and hired an inspector to try to accomplish what government 
should have done: make landlords observe the laws in regard to stair¬ 
ways, basements, windows, etc., and teach tenement dwellers how to 
care for rented property. The inspector went to the different landlords 
with this proposal: 

"See here, bad tenants injure your property. They throw refuse into the 
plumbing, and it costs you good money to repair the damage. They clutter the 
halls with filth and spoil the place for future tenants. On the other hand, they 
complain that you permit water to stand in the basement while they get in¬ 
fluenza or something equally bad. Let us effect a compromise. I will get the 
tenants to promise to keep the property in good repair if you will promise to 
make the necessary improvements.” 

Most of the landlords agreed to this, and the inspector drew up rules 
which were posted in all their houses. 

6. In Chicago a manufacturing company pays for the maintenance of 
one of the principal streets where its employees live. In many cities 
street-railway companies pay for extra policemen to regulate the traffic 
of the principal streets. 

7. A private citizen in a town which was badly in need of a new 
high school gave the land, an architect offered his services in drawing 
plans, and the chamber of commerce pledged a gift of money. 

8. Nearly half of the public parks have been purchased by private 
funds. 

9. The chambers of commerce have been especially active in making 
better communities; in one case a chamber of commerce was wholly 
responsible for securing paved streets, sewers, and improved water and 
lighting plants for the town. 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


ISI 

19 . A Community is never finished. A community cannot be 
made once for all. It is being changed day by day. Every¬ 
thing that changes the home life or work life changes the whole 
community. So, whether you wish to or not, you are helping 
make and remake your community. For the most part the young 
people are preparing to help make and remake it in these ways: 

1. By preparing in school for (a) mingling with people, ( b ) earning 
a living, ( c ) doing some special service for the community. 

2. By being able and ready to tell the older people of the community 
about school affairs. 

3. By using the library to supplement the school. 

4. By using the playgrounds, athletic fields, and gymnasiums to help 
develop a strong body that will be equal to the long years of struggle 
ahead. 

5. By entertaining friends in the home, thus learning the fine art 
of hospitality, which is an important part of community life. 

6. By using the streets, public buildings, and other people’s property 
in a careful, respectful manner. 

7. By having it always in mind that the community is something 
to be cared for by you, that it needs the same kind of eager attention 
that your home, yard, and other possessions need. Remember that some 
of your parents’ money is invested in the streets, the parks, the school- 
house, and the library. 

8. By beginning at once to serve the part of the community that 
is in need of service. Some blind or lame or ill person, some person who 
is poorer than you, should have a little of your time and thought. 

9. By studying some member of your community whom you ad¬ 
mire and wish to imitate. 

10. By contributing money or service, or both, to some church or 
religious organization. 

11. By belonging to some such organization as the Junior Red 
Cross, in which results depend on cooperation. 

12. By learning as much as possible about the government part of 
your community. 

20 . How Older People help make the Community. All this 
preparatory work is so important that none of it can be neg¬ 
lected without doing harm to the community of the future. 
Once schooldays are over, each person helps make the com¬ 
munity in some of the following ways: 


152 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


1. Earning his living by means of some occupation that is necessary 
to the well-being of the community. 

2. Knowing everything possible about the work by means of which 
he earns his living: whose money is invested in it, who manages it, how 
it is managed, how it is connected with other kinds of work, what would 
make it fail, what failure would mean to the community. 

3. Having a real home and owning it if possible. 

4. Saving money and depositing it in the savings bank or investing 
it in undertakings that will be for the good of his own or some other 
community. 

5. Knowing how the community’s money is spent, especially whether 
the schools, the library, the playgrounds, have sufficient funds to make 
them efficient, and if not what is the reason. 

6. Taking an active part in organizations that are connected with 
the life of the community—church, community center, village im¬ 
provement society, and similar organizations. 

7. Belonging to local or national societies by means of which he 
may indirectly help improve the community. 

8. Reading regularly a newspaper that will keep him informed about 
local affairs and about what is taking place in state and nation. 

9. Acting as leader when he sees an opportunity. Being an intelli¬ 
gent follower when another person leads. 

10. Visiting and knowing as much as possible about several other 
communities, especially about some large city and some rural com¬ 
munity. 

11. Investigating qualifications of candidates for public office. 

21 . Only the Right Kind of Spirit can keep Our Communities 
from Dying. One of the hardest things for young people to 
understand is that the town in which they live and the nation 
in which their town is situated may not be permanent. When 
they see the massive, seemingly immovable skyscrapers of New 
York and Chicago, the hundreds of square miles of brick and 
stone buildings, they may think of these cities as gradually 
changing,—more and higher buildings being erected, new streets 
being laid out, a tree cut down here, another planted there,— 
but a crumbling, deserted Chicago, or a timid, fearful, poverty- 
stricken New York, they never imagine. There is only one kind 
of magic, however, that will keep cities from dying. This is the 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


153 

spirit of the men and women who live in them. The secret of 
wealth or poverty lies with the people. Fear of hard work, 
unwillingness to lead the way, the desire for unearned riches,— 
all these may so sap the strength of the American people that 
they will not be able to stand out against the enemies already 
here. The pupils in school, the workers at their work, are the 
ones who will determine what the nation of tomorrow will be. 
If the people strive only to accumulate and leave behind them 
hoarded wealth, then the fate of the nation may be that of 
Rome as pictured in the verses of Edgar A. Guest: 

They passed to their children the hoarded gold, 

Their marble halls and their fertile fields. 

But not the spirit of Rome of old, 

Nor the Roman courage that never yields. 

They left them the wealth that their hands had won, 

But they failed to leave them a purpose true; 

They left them thinking life’s work all done, 

And Rome went down and was lost to view. 1 

22 . The World’s "Lost” Cities. The world’s list of "lost” 
cities is a long one. We are fascinated by tales of such Old World 
cities as that of Sigiri, of Ceylon, which was built on a high 
cliff. On one side of the cliff was erected an enormous brick 
lion, between whose paws were placed massive iron gates to 
help in defending the city. But although the city was built on 
this natural fortress, which made capture practically impossible, 
the king at one time descended to the plain to meet an armed 
force that was marching against him, and there was defeated 
and killed. Today there are only rusted iron and the natural 
stairway to tell the story of the city. Even in our own United 
States, in the state of New Mexico, we have the remains of three 
walled cities that once were powerful and prosperous—"cities 
that died of fear,” they have been called. They died because 
their inhabitants were not courageous enough to defend them 
against bands of roaming Indians which attacked them again 
1 Copyrighted by Reilly & Lee Co., publishers. 


154 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


and again, hoping to win loot and temporary quarters. After a 
time the people who had built these cities fled—no one knows 
just when or where. 

While there may be no armies to confront us, no wander¬ 
ing bands of savages to envy us the prosperity of our sky- 
scrapered cities and comfortably-housed towns and villages, yet 
there are enemies within and without that can bring to our cities 
the same kind of destruction that visited these cities of Ceylon 
and New Mexico. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter as a whole before studying any part. Write a 
brief summary of it, first re-reading the summary of Chapter V, which is 
closely related to this. 

2 . A civics class in a small town made the following study of their 
community. They put themselves in the place of a stranger who wished 
to learn as much as possible by observation alone. Discuss each item 
and tell what each shows about the people of the community. For 
every defect shown what would be the best remedy (individual effort, 
private organizations, government help) ? 

I. The town has a population of about 3500. A small river divides it into 
two almost equal parts which are connected by a single drawbridge. 
Coal and freight boats are frequently towed through the draw to the 
woolen mill a mile above. 

II. The streets are fairly well laid out, but many bad curves and sharp 
corners make accidents possible. Not enough signs are used to warn 
strangers of these bad curves. In one case a large tree obscures the 
view of the cross street. 

III. The roads are better paved and in general in a better condition than 

the sidewalks. There is no uniform system of paving the sidewalks. 
There is now no sidewalk on the road running along the west side of 
the river, although this is much used by pedestrians. There seems no 
excuse for this. 

IV. The grass plots between sidewalks and roads are in poor condition. 

Apparently neither the town nor the residents make it their business 
to attend to these. 

V. The streets seem to be sprinkled irregularly. The plan of thoroughly 
drenching them early in the morning and then early in the evening 
seems not to have been adopted. 

VI. On the main streets the trees are well cared for, but on many side streets 
are almost wholly neglected. From the post office north the trees need 
immediate attention in these respects: 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


x 55 


1. Dead limbs need to be removed. 

2. Wire or some other protective device should be used on the lower 

trunks of those trees within the reach of horses. 

3. All elm trees should be examined by a tree expert to see if they are 

being preyed upon by the elm beetle. The leaves do not have a 
normal, vigorous look. 

VII. The following streets are poorly shaded and should have new trees set 
out next spring: Church, High, Chambers. 

VIII. About half the houses have fences. In most cases these are in good con¬ 
dition, but on Pearl and Groton Streets they are disgraceful. They 
need painting and repairing. 

IX. About 75 per cent of the yards are in excellent condition. In some cases, 
however, while the front and side yards are neat and attractive, the 
back yards are not in the best possible condition. Too much refuse 
is allowed to accumulate. The back yards on Elm Street and High 
Street are models, however. Apparently back-yard garbage piles are 
unnecessary, for the town collects garbage once in two weeks. 

X. Almost all the best-appearing houses have a vegetable garden in the rear 
or at the side, showing thrift as well as neatness. 

XI. The town has swarms of flies and mosquitoes. The flies probably 
thrive because of the garbage piles, the careless dump along the river, 
and laxity of the grocers, who do not dispose of their spoiled goods 
in the right manner. 

XII. The business part of the town is centrally and conveniently located. 

The post office is clean and neat, so is the bank, one of the jewelry 
stores, and one clothing store. All the other stores—about fifteen 
—are slipshod and unattractive and in many cases extremely dirty 

XIII. There are a railroad station, a freight station, and two sidings con¬ 

necting with two of the factories. Ten passenger trains a day stop 
at the station. Four of these are mail trains. 

XIV. The four factories are situated in different parts of the town, one being 

near the center, the other three in the outskirts—one north, another 
west, and the other south. The buildings are old, well-painted, and 
the surroundings clean, but nothing has been done to make them espe¬ 
cially attractive. Many of the silk-mill workers ride to and from 
work on the trolley, but no place for them to wait in stormy weather 
has been provided by the mill authorities, and the cars run only every 
half hour. 

The smoke nuisance from these factories is not great, for apparently 
(either because of a town regulation or a state law) they have smoke¬ 
consuming devices. 

XV. There are several residential sections which are not in good condition. 
The houses need painting and repairing, trees are needed for shade, 
and too many sheds and small buildings have been allowed to clutter 
up the yards. 


156 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

XVI. There are five churches,— Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, 

Congregational,—all with unusually attractive church buildings. 
Three have deep, beautiful bells. 

XVII. There are many doctor’s signs, which, together with the large number 

of flies and mosquitoes, would seem to mean that there is much sick¬ 
ness here. 

XVIII. The people represent a racial mixture. The mill-workers are largely 
foreigners. These appear sturdy, well fed, and well dressed, but are 
evidently lacking in any but the barest education. The workers 
in the silk mill are mostly young girls and middle-aged women 
who are refined in speech and in looks. The other people whom 
one meets are moderately well-to-do. There is very little of the 
extreme styles shown in clothing, which probably means that the 
people are either conservative or in moderate circumstances. The 
fact that there are a great many old people and few young men 
apparently means that the younger generation is not content to 
remain in the town. 

XIX. There are no wells or pumps in the yard, but there are hydrants on 
all the principal streets—which means that the town has a water 
system. 

XX. There are two school buildings, one on each side of the river. These 
are large, attractive brick buildings with large playground spaces, 
but no playground apparatus. They have outside fire escapes. Ap¬ 
parently the town has no high school, or if it has, it has so small an 
attendance that a separate building is not necessary. But the fact 
that few young men are seen in the stores and on the streets prob¬ 
ably means that there is no high school here to hold them. 

XXI. There is one motion-picture theater in a ramshackle wooden building. 
It gives its program four times a day: once at 2, again at 3.30, then 
at 7.30, and last at 9. The program changes every day. The posters 
show that it is the lurid, yellow type of show that is provided. The 
children stand in line to get into the evening performance. The 
"movies” and ice-cream sodas seem to be the only regular means of 
diversion for most of the community. 

XXII. While many automobiles pass through the main streets, not many 
machines are owned by the townspeople, for there are few garages 
in the yards (another fact pointing either to conservatism or to 
moderate circumstances). 

XXIII. The town hall looks like an abandoned church. The fire apparatus is 
kept in the basement, but no men are stationed there: evidently 
the community has only voluntary firemen. One small corner of 
the basement has barred windows, and is probably used for tem¬ 
porary quarters for arrested persons. Only one policeman appears 
on the streets. 


WHERE WORK MEETS HOME 


157 


3 . Make a similar investigation of your community (or neighborhood, 
if you live in a large city), setting down only what a stranger might 
observe. In every case tell what should be done to remedy a condition 
that is not right (for example, untidy grocery stores, lack of shade trees, 
lack of railway waiting station for factory employees). Tell also in 
every case what is responsible for a good condition (attractive churches, 
no smoke nuisance, etc.). 

4 . Find out all the principal kinds of work life that hold your com¬ 
munity together. Divide these into basal work and secondary work. 

5 . Investigate thoroughly two or more of the forms of basal work 
of your community. For this purpose the class should be divided into 
groups, each with a definite assignment. Find out (1) how long each 
kind of work has been in the community, (2) how many workers it 
employs, (3) whether or not it owns any of the homes occupied by 
workers, (4) on what kinds of outside work in other sections of the 
United States it is dependent, (5) what parts of the nation are benefited 
by it, (6) how often it has slack times and what is the cause of these, 
(7) how greatly the community would be affected by its removal. Set 
down in your loose-leaf notebook the results of the class investigation. 
Before making this investigation, turn back to the study prepared for 
Chapter I (problem 6), and use as much of the data obtained there as 
will be useful here. 

6. Take one of the outline maps of your state which you have already 
prepared (see Chapter I) and trace on this the way in which the work 
life of your community connects it with other parts of the state (railroad 
centers, distant markets, distant sources of supplies of coal, water power, 
and raw materials—such as cotton or wool for mills, leather for shoes, 
goat skins for gloves, etc.). Some of the lines will extend far beyond 
the boundaries of your state into and across other states: trace these on a 
map of the United States. 

7 . Turn to the lists made out in your study of Chapter I and, using 
these as a basis, make complete lists of (1) the helps to home life to be 
found in your community, (2) the helps to work life, (3) the "escaped” 
parts of the home to be found outside the homes in places of work 
and elsewhere. 

8 . Take one of the outline maps of your community prepared in con¬ 
nection with Chapter I and on it locate your home. Then draw lines in 
red ink connecting your home with all the parts of the community that 
affect its comfort and happiness (see lists on pages 141, 142). Use red ink 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


158 

to show connection with electric or gas plant, telephone company, source 
of milk supply, reservoir, lake, or river which supplies water etc., and 
black ink to show connection with the parts of the home that have over¬ 
flowed into the community—playground, parks, garage, laundry, bakery, 
etc. But include only those parts of the community that are actually 
used by your home. 

9 . Write out in diary form all the things you did on a recent school- 
day and on Saturday and Sunday, then indicate whether the government 
was connected in any way with each of these. Write out a similar im¬ 
aginary diary for your father or some person who has to earn his living. 

10 . Make a separate study of the "getting together” part of the com¬ 
munity. Copy the outline, with the facts that you collect, in your note¬ 
book. Be sure to include gatherings at the churches, school hall, public 
library, etc. 

11 . Find out by consulting your local newspaper, your parents, and 
several business and professional men what private organizations (like 
board of trade, Red Cross branch, American Legion, cooperative market¬ 
ing associations, ladies’ aid society, etc.) your community has and what 
is the purpose of each. Assuming that you will some day want to join 
one or several of these, what will be your choice ? Why ? 

12 . On page 150 are mentioned some of the unofficial helps given to 
the community by private individuals or organizations. Quite as im¬ 
portant are the helps sold to the people by business concerns. It is 
usually government that brings pure water to homes and carries away 
waste water, but it is private companies that install in the buildings the 
necessary pipes and fixtures (which were invented and manufactured by 
private concerns). Government officials inspect the electric wiring of 
buildings to see that there is no danger of fire, but private electricians 
are employed to insert the wiring and fixtures (which were invented and 
manufactured by private concerns). Government lays out roads, but in¬ 
ventors and manufacturers together have produced automobiles to sell 
to the people to make inexpensive travel possible. Electric lights, eleva¬ 
tors, telephones, and many other conveniences are produced by private 
companies. Make a list of the conveniences of your home and commu¬ 
nity to see how many are given by government and how many are sold 
by business concerns. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT — VOTING AND 
LAWMAKING 

1 . Government Machinery consists of Laws and Plans. The 

machinery of government consists of laws and plans for carry¬ 
ing out the laws. Government officials and employees are the 
operators of this machinery. All such acts as hiring teachers or 
collecting income taxes are merely the machinery of govern¬ 
ment in motion—certain laws being carried out by special 
officials. Of course not every act of a government official has 
been provided for by law. How many deliveries of mail a day 
there shall be, whether the post offices in cities shall be open 
evenings, and many other matters have been left to the officials 
in charge of the post-office department to decide. For every 
law there must be many such plans carefully worked out. 

2 . Three Different Sets of Government Machinery. There 
are three different sets of government machinery in the United 
States: national, state, and community. For each of these 
there is 

1. A general plan: that of the nation is called "constitution”; that 
of the states is also called "constitution”; that of cities and other legal 
communities is called "charter” or its equivalent. 

2. A large number of laws made to carry out the plan of the consti¬ 
tution or charter. 

To make the necessary laws, in the first place, and to revise and 
amend them as needed, requires the services of a large number 
of people: 

1. A group of men called Congress to make laws to supplement and 
carry out the national Constitution. 

2. A group of men in every state—called the legislature—to make 
laws to supplement and carry out the state constitution. 

i59 


i6o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3. A group of people called common council, or trustees, or town 
or village meeting, or county board of commissioners, to make the laws 
or ordinances to supplement and carry out the charters of communities 
and the state laws pertaining to counties. 

To carry out the laws and ordinances made by Congress, state 
legislatures, common councils, trustees, town meetings, etc. re¬ 
quires the services of too many thousands of persons to be 
enumerated here, but certain ones are illustrative of all: 

1. In the nation— (a) President and Vice President; ( b ) ten depart¬ 
ments : State, Treasury, War, Navy, Post Office, Justice, Interior, Agri¬ 
culture, Commerce, Labor, all of which have many subdivisions called 
bureaus, boards, service, etc.; (c) certain commissions and boards which 
do not belong to any department but are directly responsible to the 
President. 

2. In the state—(a) various officials, like governor, lieutenant 
governor, treasurer, secretary, etc.; ( b ) many regular departments, such 
as Agriculture, Education, Highway, Park, Labor, etc.; (c) many special 
boards and commissions which are not a part of a regular department. 

3. In the community— (a) various officials, like mayor, selectmen, 
treasurer; ( b ) many regular departments, such as School, Finance, 
Street, Sewer, Fire, Police, Park, etc.; ( c ) special boards and commis¬ 
sions which are separate from the regular departments. 

To act as leaders of those who make and carry out the laws 
requires such special helpers as 

1. In the nation : president, vice president, cabinet. 

2. In the state : governor, lieutenant governor. 

3. In the community: mayor, secretary, chairman of trustees, 
president. 

To assist these groups of officials—Congress, state legislatures, 
common councils, town or village meetings, president, and gov¬ 
ernors—to carry out laws requires still another kind of govern¬ 
ment help: 

1. In the nation: Department of Justice, Supreme Court, other 
courts. 

2. In the state: supreme court, county courts, other special courts. 

3. In the community: police courts, municipal courts. 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


161 


3 . A Brief Summary of the Machinery of Government. This 
elaborate machinery and its operators can be summed up as 
follows: 

1. Written plans called constitutions and charters. 

2. Written rules for carrying out the plans, called laws and ordinances. 

3. People to make the laws, called Congress, legislature, common 
council, trustees, town meetings, etc. 



©E. L. Crandall 


The Senate and the committee rooms of the Senate are in this wing of the 
Capitol at Washington 

4. Officials to carry out the laws, with many names, such as depart¬ 
ment of agriculture, school committee, or policemen. 

5. Leaders to supervise the carrying out of laws: president, governors, 
mayors, etc. 

6. Special officials to assist in carrying out the laws, called courts of 
various kinds. 

4 . How the Machinery of Government is Made and Run. To 

make and carry out laws requires the time of many persons. 
The people choose these officials, either directly by voting for 
certain officials, such as presidential electors, governor, or 
mayor, or indirectly by allowing the elected officials to appoint 
others. In other words, it is the people who make and run the 
machinery of government. Through taxes—direct or indirect 









162 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


—the people pay for the work of making constitutions and 
granting charters, making laws and carrying them out. But 
this is, of course, only another way of saying that government 
is all the people all the time, for back of every official and 
every law stand all the people of the nation. Thus the making 
and running of the machinery of government is accomplished 
(i) by voting, (2) by lawmaking, (3) by carrying out the laws, 
(4) by taxpaying. 

5 . Voting is the First Step in Making and Running the 
Machinery of Government. Voting is such a simple matter that 
many persons fail to realize how important it is. Even when 
the welfare of a great city is at stake, thousands of citizens do 
not take the trouble to register and vote. Virginia had an early 
colonial law requiring that " every freeholder actually resident 
in each county shall appear and vote at such election, or shall 
forfeit Two hundred pounds of Tobacco to the Informer.” But 
none of the states attempted to make voting compulsory until 
1890, when a bill was introduced into the New York State 
legislature, making it a misdemeanor, with a penalty of $25, 
to fail to vote. Other similar bills have been introduced in other 
states from time to time, but neither the New York bill nor 
any of the others have passed. Probably compulsory voting 
will never be tried in the United States, for that would destroy 
one of the ideals of a democratic nation. But if large numbers 
of the people who benefit from government continue to take no 
interest in elections, then incompetent or dishonest officials will 
be elected, and the work of government will be badly done. 

6. Voting is Something More than marking a Ballot. The 
first and most important part of voting is helping decide what 
names shall be placed on the ballot. According to present laws 
each political party or group of citizens that obtains the neces¬ 
sary signatures can nominate candidates for office. And it is 
therefore through these parties or groups that one must act. 
Formerly candidates for office were nominated only in caucuses 
or in conventions. Now the people often nominate the candi¬ 
dates of their party through what is called the primary. This 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 163 

means that instead of voting once for governor, or president, or 
congressman, and other elected officials, the people can vote 
twice—once for the candidates to represent their party on the 
ballot and later for one of these candidates to hold the office. 
Thus the people have the machinery and therefore the oppor¬ 
tunity to choose the right kind of persons for mayor, president, 
senator, representative, etc. 

7 . Voting requires Preparation. But there is still something 
more to voting than going both to the primary and to the voting- 
booth : knowing the right men and women to nominate in the 
primaries. Of all the tasks confronting the citizen this is one 
of the most important and most difficult. To elect a person to 
any office is to give him for a specified time great power for 
good or for harm. But to tell in advance who are the persons 
who will do good and not harm is not easy. One can learn this 
only in these ways: 

1. Reading of the activities and speeches of the kind of men and 
women who are likely to be nominated. 

2. Hearing them talk whenever possible. 

3. Learning as much as possible about their earlier years—their 
education, how they achieved success, what kind of service they have 
voluntarily given their community. 

4. Talking over the candidates with persons whose judgment is 
worth considering. 

5. Comparing the campaign promises of the different candidates. 
In times of crisis in town, state, or nation, or when some change is 
greatly desired by the people, it will usually be wise to vote for the 
man who is definite and straightforward and sensible in his promises. 
Candidates who promise to "raise wages,” "lower taxes,” "get a full 
dinner pail for every wage-earner,” or "put Smithville on the map,” 
cannot, of course, be trusted, for it is not within the power of any one 
person to bring such things about. 

6. Belonging to some league or good-government association which 
has committees who spend much time investigating candidates for office 
and giving their members the information they accumulate. 

Constant mingling with large numbers of people will help a 
person to judge character and to learn the difference between 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


164 

men who talk much and do little and those who say little but 
always get results. The public school is one of the early helps 
toward intelligent voting, because in school pupils begin at 
once to learn how to mingle with people and how to determine 
who are competent leaders. However, it is not merely being 
with people that is useful training. It is being constantly alert 
to study people, to get their opinions, and to discuss important 
matters with them. Those who differ widely from us in habits 
and ambitions will help elect mayors, governors, legislators, 
and thus help change the nation. It is therefore essential not 
only to discuss matters with our friends but to talk with per¬ 
sons whose work life, home life, and ambitions are very dif¬ 
ferent from ours. 

8. The Legal Requirements for Voting.. To become a voter 

a person must be 

1. Twenty-one years of age. 

2. A native-born American or a naturalized citizen or one who has 
declared his intention to become a citizen. 

3. Registered in the town or city in which he claims legal residence. 

In some states a literacy test is required for voting, in others 
only those who have paid a state and county tax can vote. It is 
evident that the privilege of voting is not given freely to anyone 
and everyone. In all states except one paupers, persons under 
legal guardianship, the insane, those convicted of certain crimes, 
may not vote. 

All the voting that any one person can do in any one year 
would not take more than six hours of his time unless he hap¬ 
pened to be a long distance away from his legal residence at 
voting time. Simple as it is, however, it requires elaborate 
machinery. The Federal Constitution specifies how and when 
elections for president, vice president, members of Congress, 
shall be conducted, the state constitutions how state elections 
shall be conducted, the city and town charters how the local 
elections shall take place. Congress and the state legislatures 
have passed laws dealing with such details as kind of ballots and 
fraudulent voting. 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 165 

9 . Voting is the Necessary First Step toward making and 
carrying out Laws. The purpose of voting is, of course, to 
provide for (1) the making of laws, (2) the carrying out of laws. 
To provide for the making of laws means electing men and 
women to serve in Congress, the state legislature, and in the 
local lawmaking body. To 
provide for the carrying 
out of laws means elect¬ 
ing certain officials to at¬ 
tend to certain definite 
tasks. Some of the elected 
officials have been given 
power to appoint other 
officials. Therefore in 
electing a president, for 
instance, the people are 
indirectly electing several 
thousand other officials— 
ambassadors, consuls, cab¬ 
inet heads, judges. In a 
state or community in 
which the people elect 
only a few officials and 
leave it to the governor, 
mayor, etc., to appoint 
most of the others, we say 
that the short ballot is 
used. Many voters be¬ 
lieve that to hold one of¬ 
ficial responsible for the work of many officials results in better 
government than when responsibility is widely scattered.. Gov¬ 
ernors and mayors are perhaps more often judged by their ap¬ 
pointments than by any other executive act. 

10 . Voting to recall Officials. When once elected or ap¬ 
pointed most officials serve until the term set bylaw has expired. 
But the president, governors, and mayors have power to remove 



© Keystone View.Co. 


Measuring the water supply of a great city. 
It takes many laws to procure and protect 
the water supply of a city 







i66 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


some of the officials whom they appoint. There is no uni¬ 
form plan, however, and many officials can be removed only 
through impeachment (trial) proceedings by Congress or the 
state legislatures. Just how each official is to be chosen and 
whether he may be dismissed and how, has to be determined in 
laws passed by Congress and the state legislatures. 

In some states the people have power not only to vote for 
officials but to vote to recall some of those whom they elect. In 
such states a group of voters can send a petition, with the proper 
number of signatures, to the governor or state legislature, re¬ 
questing that a special election be called so that the people may 
decide by ballot whether a certain official shall continue in office. 
It is thought that officials who know that they may be removed 
in this way at any time will be less likely to abuse the privileges 
of their office. 

11 . Lawmaking is the Second Step in Making and Running 
the Machinery of Government. Many people think of laws only 
as restrictions. They do not understand that the "don’ts” 
are only a small part of the laws of the United States. Laws, 
like constitutions, are only agreements which the people make 
among themselves to do or not to do certain things, and since 
the American people are doers of things and makers of things 
most of their laws are helps to doing and making. 

12 . How Laws are made by Congress. It is no wonder, then, 
that the making of laws is one of the greatest industries of the 
United States. In four years’ time sixty-five thousand laws 
were passed by Congress and the forty-eight states. The ma¬ 
chinery by which this vast piece of work was accomplished was 
simple enough. The men who make the laws for the nation are 
divided into two parts—the Senate and the House of Repre¬ 
sentatives. The Senate numbers 96, two senators from each 
state; the House of Representatives in 1923 had 435 members, 
one for each congressional district in the United States. They 
meet in regular session the first week of each December, and in 
special session whenever summoned by the president. The pre¬ 
siding officer of the Senate is the vice president, of the House 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 167 

the " Speaker,” who is elected by the members of the House 
from their own number. The president appears in Congress only 
when he reads his annual message or on special occasions to urge 
a declaration of war or the passage of an important bill. When 
the members of Congress wish to consult him, they call at his 
offices in the White House. 

Any proposed laws, except those dealing with revenue, 
can be introduced into either House (revenue bills can 
originate only in the House of Representatives), and at the 
opening of each session hundreds of bills are waiting for 
their trial in both Houses. Proposed laws, or bills, as they 
are usually called, are divided according to subjects, and 
are referred to committees which have charge of these sub¬ 
jects. In the Senate there are now about seventy commit¬ 
tees and in the House sixty. Before any bill is discussed 
or even read in Congress, it has been thoroughly discussed 
and phrased in committee. Most bills never go farther 
than the committees, for so many thousands are every 
year submitted to Congress that to even read them aloud 
in open session would take more days than there are in 
the year. 

Committees are therefore necessary; but to the citizen 
who visits the Capitol it is disappointing to find that many 
of the seats in the Senate and House of Representatives 
are empty, and the places look like a schoolroom at re¬ 
cess on a rainy day when a few pupils have stayed in 
afraid of the wet. Many congressmen are not even in the 
Capitol building during working hours, but will be found 
in the roomy Senate and House office buildings, which have 
been built close to the Capitol. Here in their private of¬ 
fices or in the committee rooms at the Capitol they are 
reading bills, discussing and revising them. 

After a committee has decided which bills it will pre¬ 
sent, a list is made out (each bill being given a number), 
many thousands of copies of each bill with the lines num¬ 
bered for use in discussion are printed, and in due time 
each bill is introduced. This introduction is about as sim¬ 
ple as that which takes place when a person introduces one 


i68 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


friend to another. The clerk announces the bill, and un¬ 
less some member of the House asks for the reading to be 
postponed, it is read, with the recommendations of the 
committee which introduced it. After it is read it may or 
may not be discussed. Often there is a long interval be¬ 
tween the first reading and the day when a vote is taken. 
Sometimes a bill is discussed at intervals throughout a ses¬ 
sion and then does not come up for a final vote at all. 

After a bill is finally voted on, if the ayes win, it is then 
sent to the other House, where it is again read and dis¬ 
cussed, and either approved, rejected, amended, pigeon¬ 
holed, or held over to the next session. Occasionally in the 
case of important matters, to save time the same bill is 
started at once in both Houses. If a bill which has been 
passed by one House is amended by the other, the amended 
bill must be returned to the first to be again voted upon. 
Often this process of amending bills and sending them back 
and forth becomes long drawn out, and the final bill is very 
unlike the one first introduced. Frequently to save time 
bills are adjusted in a conference between a committee 
from the Senate and one from the House. When a bill has 
been passed by both Houses it is sent by messenger to the 
president, who has the important privilege of either ap¬ 
proving or vetoing it. 

To veto a bill means that it will not become a law un¬ 
less it is again discussed and voted on in both Houses. A 
two-thirds vote will cancel the president’s veto. When 
a bill has finally, with or without the president’s approval, 
become a law, then large numbers of the final form of the 
bill are printed and sent to the government offices, libra¬ 
ries, and newspapers all over the country. The ordinary 
person, however, never sees the full text of a bill, but gets 
his information about new laws from the newspapers. 

A bill that is passed becomes for the time being the law 
of the whole nation. But at the next session it may be 
repealed or amended. Any and every law that has been 
passed may also be called upon to stand the test of the 
Supreme Court. Any citizen may at any time start a 
movement to have a law passed by Congress taken to the 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 169 

Supreme Court to be examined. All laws so brought to 
this court must be examined by it to see if they violate any 
of the specifications of the Constitution. If the court finds 
that they do, they immediately become ineffective. 

13 . Lawmaking is often a Slow, Tedious Process. A great 
deal of fault, good-natured and otherwise, has been found 
with the time consumed by the senators and representatives in 
coming to a vote. In 1825 the United States had been asked to 
send delegates to a Panama congress to be held in Central 
America to consider the status of the negro republic of Hayti 
and other matters. Secretary of State Clay had accepted the 
invitation for the United States, and President Adams nomi¬ 
nated delegates, whom, after a long delay, the Senate con¬ 
firmed ; but it was then necessary to ask the House to pass a 
law appropriating money for the expenses of the delegates, 
which they did, but only after so many lengthy discussions and 
delays that by the time the money was available the Pan¬ 
ama congress had adjourned. But it was not only the early 
legislators who consumed the people’s time. In a recent year 
someone estimated that Congress talked about five hundred 
thousand words a week, all of which were printed in the Con¬ 
gressional Record at a cost of about $10,000 a week. 

14 . How Laws are made by the States. The state legislatures 
are similar to the national legislature in most respects—each 
being divided into two Houses, each bill having to be passed 
by both Houses and approved by the governor, who also usually 
has the veto power. Here also bills are first submitted to com¬ 
mittees, who sort them out and decide which ones will be 
brought up for discussion. In the case of a bill that the com¬ 
mittee decides not to " report,” the senator or representative 
who presented it is notified, and he is given a chance to "with¬ 
draw.” If a legislator believes earnestly in the importance of 
his bill, he and his friends appear before the committee and 
give their reason for wanting it considered. If they are unsuc¬ 
cessful, they may either hold the bill until the next session and 
reintroduce it or have their successors do so. In one state a 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


170 

water-power bill was introduced at each session for ten years. 
It was usually favorably reported by the committee, but was 
either defeated or not voted on. Each bill has to be introduced 
by a member of the state legislature. Any person or group of 
persons can decide on a measure that they want to become law 
and request the senator or representative from their district to 
present it for them. 

15 . The People want Many Kinds of Laws. An idea of the 
great variety of bills that are submitted to each legislature is 
given by the following, which were a few of the many intro¬ 
duced at a recent session: 

1. A bill providing that "the manufacture, sale, display, ownership, 
possession, or wearing of shoes the heels of which are of greater height 
that ii inches, be prohibited.” (Was not passed.) 

2. A bill providing that the Veterans of Foreign Wars be given quarters 
in the Statehouse. (Was passed.) 

3. A bill providing that in all towns with a valuation of more than 
$1,000,000 a school nurse must be employed. (Was passed.) 

4. A bill making it illegal for persons to pick trailing arbutus for a 
period of five years. (Was not passed.) 

5. A bill increasing the salary of the commissioner of education from 
$7500 to $9000. (Was passed.) 

Probably every legislator who voted against the bills to prevent 
the destruction of trailing arbutus and the making, selling, and 
wearing of high heels believed that wild flowers should be pro¬ 
tected and that people should be prevented from harming them¬ 
selves by wearing high-heeled boots, but in their opinion these 
matters were not for the lawmakers to attend to. A law cannot 
teach the beauty of a wild flower, neither can it make women 
understand that they are creating future misery for themselves 
by wearing unreasonable shoes. It is the work of schools and 
private organizations, through lectures and books, to make 
people intelligent enough to want to protect beautiful things 
like wild flowers and to conserve their health in every way 
possible. As we shall point out more at length later, every 
law even at the cheapest is expensive: it takes the time of the 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 171 

legislators to consider it (for which the people pay), it costs 
money to have the law printed (for which the people pay), it 
requires the time of paid government workers—inspectors, 
stenographers, and clerks—to carry out the law (for all of 
which the people pay). Therefore the people are shortsighted 
if they try to accomplish by means of laws what can be more 
easily, inexpensively, and better accomplished in other ways. 






/fa/77 1 

a/e 057 7 s9»*s~ o/L, ! k 


Zrf/a/Z&a/ /7/7z*r7 4 4~ 

h 




tf & & 1 

k±%. lA 

lU.Ti* 
pit A 

H J,j &<I h 

a Hi 

i 4 mji 


© Keystone View Co. 

This sign indicates how the Chinese restaurant keeper felt about the 
prohibition amendment 


16 . How the People help make Laws. Whenever any bill that 
is really vital is introduced every person can do much either to 
defeat it or put it through. In some states there are public hear¬ 
ings on every bill, and in all others there are opportunities for 
talking with the committees who have charge of the various 
bills. When personal interviews are not possible, letters and 
telegrams can be used. A mail full of letters of protest against a 
bill or in support of it from individuals, business clubs, churches, 
and other associations is one of the things that often determines 
how the representative or senator will vote. 




172 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


17 . The Initiative and Referendum. In most states all the 
people, without leaving their work or home towns, can at times 
help pass laws. This is by means of what we call the initiative 
and referendum. No individual can send a proposed law di¬ 
rectly to his state legislature—he must persuade his represent¬ 
ative to introduce it. But within recent years it has been 
made possible for the people at home both to draft laws and 
to vote on them. Any person can make the start by drawing 
up a petition to the legislature stating exactly the kind of law 
desired (the initiative). If he can secure enough signatures to 
this petition the legislature is required either to vote on- the 
measure or to submit it directly to the people (the referendum). 
The number of signatures necessary to bring such a petition to 
the attention of the legislature is 3 per cent of the registered 
voters in some states and as high as 25 per cent in others. Thus 
far there has been little to show that "all the people” are wiser 
in the making of laws than the smaller groups of special law¬ 
makers elected by the people. But the power of initiative and 
referendum gives the people a feeling of safety and freedom 
which was previously lacking. And what increases this feeling 
on the part of the people makes for the safety and welfare of the 
whole nation. 

18 . Other Ways of helping make Laws. There are many 
indirect ways, like the following, in which every person can 
have some influence in the making of laws: 

1. Voting intelligently at each election. 

2. Reading regularly a newspaper that gives the best account of 
what takes place at Washington, at the state capital, and in the local 
lawmaking body. 

3. Belonging, if possible, to some association or society that is in¬ 
terested in getting certain kinds of laws passed. There are many 
organizations, like the American Forestry Association, the Anti-Saloon 
League, # the National Child Labor Association, the Audubon Society, 
which are constantly trying to have the right kind of laws passed to 
protect forests, enforce the prohibition laws, protect children, preserve 
birds that are useful. By becoming a member of these a person is 
doing his part toward passing such laws. Most communities are so 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


173 



large that a person can accomplish little by acting alone. Especially in 
such an important matter as lawmaking he should plan to act with 
others either in opposing a bad law, approving a good law, or demand¬ 
ing that laws be enforced. In one city there is a Blind and Cripples 
Union to which anyone can belong who is interested in helping the 
blind and crippled to earn 
a living. This Union was 
largely responsible for get¬ 
ting a state law passed 
appropriating money for 
schools and classes for 
the handicapped. 

4. Securing copies of 
the full draft of several 
laws, and studying these 
in order to see for oneself 
how accurately a law must 
be phrased, how carefully 
it must provide the means 
by which it shall be car¬ 
ried out (each law must 
tell by whom the law shall 
be carried out, how much 
money shall be raised to 
carry it out, and what 
shall be the punishment 
for those who break it), 
how closely it is related to 
other laws that have al¬ 
ready been passed. 

5. Following carefully 
some special law after it 
has been passed to see if 

it accomplishes what it is supposed to, and if not, whether the law was 
badly made or the wrong officials were chosen to carry it out. 

6. Studying every part of daily life to decide what changes in na¬ 
tional, state, and local laws are most needed. Include school, home, 
recreation, and work life. Would any new law, or a change in a present 
law, improve your school, give your home more protection, or give you 
more opportunities for swimming, playing tennis, earning or saving 
more money? 


Laws that legislatures pass are as interesting 
as stories, for they make happy homes possible 





174 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


19 . Laws are as Fascinating as Scenes in a Novel. We too 
often think of constitutions and laws only as long, uninteresting 
paragraphs of dry details. But almost every law passed by 
either Congress or a state legislature stands for something as 
interesting as a scene in a novel or for a kind of pageant in 
which there are many actors and many scenes. The amendment 
giving the suffrage to women stood for a pageant in which long 
columns of women marched through the streets of the great 
cities of the nation, for monstrous petitions carried to the 
White House, for little groups of women at the state capitols, 
and finally for the great gathering in the rotunda of the Capi¬ 
tol at Washington, where, to martial music, girls from every 
state, carrying banners and flags, circled the great hall through 
which every president but Washington has passed, while thou¬ 
sands of men and women applauded. The amendment prohib¬ 
iting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors suggested 
home scenes of poverty, railroad wrecks, and murders. What 
one law meant in the lives of some of Pennsylvania’s people the 
following news item tells clearly: 

COURT UPHOLDS CAVE LAW; SCRAN¬ 
TON FOLK CELEBRATE 

Scranton, Pa., June 24.— Residents of Scran¬ 
ton today celebrated in wild fashion the action 
of the Supreme Court in sustaining the Kohler 
mine-cave law, which means that the people of 
the anthracite region have won their fight to 
protect their lives and property. 

At 3.30 factory whistles were blown, church 
bells rung, automobile horns blown, and fire 
bells sounded in every fire station in the city for 
fifteen minutes. More than fifteen years the 
people here have been fighting for mine-cave 
protection. 

Wherever you read in the newspaper items about laws which 
Congress or your state legislature has passed, think of what 
these stand for in the lives of the people. Once you get the habit 
of interpreting them in this way they will never seem dull and 
lifeless to you. 

20 . The Courts help carry out Laws. Lawmaking is done in 
town halls, city halls, state and national capitols. The carry- 




THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


175 


ing out of laws is done in the schoolhouse, on the street, in the 
factory—wherever there are people. A special kind of assist¬ 
ance in carrying out laws is given by the courts. 

The courts help carry out laws by seeing that the penalties 
specified by the laws are enforced. First, however, they have to 
determine whether a person has broken the law. Just how a 
person may be arrested, examined, and brought into court has 
been provided in constitution and laws. In the cases of certain 
crimes the law states exactly how an offender is to be punished. 
Such cases are usually tried by a jury, and the penalty is pro¬ 
nounced by the judge. In the case of many minor offenses the 
law permits the judge to use discretion in fixing penalties. He 
is supposed to consider the welfare of the community, of the 
family of the guilty person, and of the guilty person himself be¬ 
fore he decides how severe a punishment to mete out. One judge 
gave a copy of the traffic laws to a motorist who was charged 
with passing a street car on the wrong side and told him to 
study them and come back in two hours. If he failed in any 
answer put by the judge the fine would be $50; if perfect, the 
fine would be $20. Another judge always tried to give a punish¬ 
ment that would cause the least possible suffering to the cul¬ 
prit’s family. A newspaper thus reported certain of this judge’s 
decisions: 

Ice men arrested for giving short weight were sentenced 
to deliver free ice for the rest of the summer to the cus¬ 
tomers they had defrauded. A milkman who had extracted 
the cream from his milk was ordered to deliver free cream. 

. . . A magistrate who tempers justice with common sense 
is not likely to be unpopular. 

21 . Courts help settle Disputes and untangle Tangles. Be¬ 
sides dealing with lawbreakers the courts give three other 
important kinds of help: (1) they settle disputes and give ad¬ 
vice ; (2) they act as a legal place of record for deeds, wills, etc.; 
(3) they decide whether laws have been rightly made. To 
many persons courts suggest only jails and reform schools, but 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


176 

without the assistance that they quietly give year after year, 
the life of the nation would be seriously handicapped. The fol¬ 
lowing are a few of the many kinds of situations that the courts 
deal with: 

1. A man makes a will dividing his property among three sons and 
leaving nothing to a daughter. The daughter wants to break the will 
because she believes that if the father had not been prejudiced against 
her, he would have given her a share of the property. No law has been 
broken, no crime committed, there is no one to be arrested. But the 
family need help in deciding whether the father was unduly influenced 
against his daughter. The family therefore go to court to have the 
matter decided for them. 

2. A man and his wife are divorced. Each wishes to keep the chil¬ 
dren. They go to court to have the matter decided. 

3. A man takes out an insurance policy which states that at the 
end of twenty years the company offers him the choice of a certain 
lump sum in cash, or a small sum each year as long as he lives. At the 
end of the twenty years the insurance company refuses to pay the lump 
sum, saying that it now gives only the yearly payment. The man cannot 
force the company to keep its word unless he takes the matter to court. 

4. An opera singer signs an agreement to sing for a certain number of 

years for the --Opera Company only, but quarrels with the manager 

of the company and refuses to sing. The manager appeals to the court 
to force the singer to keep the agreement. 

5. A man owns three thousand acres of woodland; a lumber com¬ 
pany claims that it owns half of this. Both the man and the company 
have deeds to the land. A mistake has been made at some time by a 
surveyor or a clerk. The man and the lumber company ask the court 
to decide to whom the land reaUy belongs. 

6. A man owes large sums of money which he cannot pay on the 
date promised. One of his creditors refuses to wait, but there is no way 
that he can get the money, so he appeals to the court to declare the man 
bankrupt. 

7. A valuable express package is lost, but the owner writes in vain 
to the company to make good his loss. He therefore takes the matter 
to court. 

8. A public school introduces folk-dancing. One man refuses to allow 
his children to take part in these dances, and the principal says they 
must leave school. The man appeals to the court to decide whether the 
school has power to expel pupils for refusing to take part in the dancing. 



THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


177 

Courts not only have many disputes to settle, but they have 
many requests for advice. A man left a large sum of money to 
his town for a public library, but the town refused to accept the 
money, which it believed inadequate to build a suitable library. 
The executor of the will therefore appealed to the court for 
instruction as to what to do with the money. An old man for 
whom a guardian had been appointed by the court, because of 



© Keystone View Co. 


Courts are busy places. A crowd waiting to hear a jury’s verdict in a 
criminal case 


his failing memory, wished to have the guardian removed so 
that he could go to a distant city to live with friends. The mat¬ 
ter was referred to the court. The judge after talking with the 
guardian and writing to the man’s friends granted his request. 

22 . Courts a Place of Deposit for Wills. The whole life of 
the nation centers so absolutely in private property that the 
courts have much important work to do in keeping matters from 
getting tangled up. One service consists in providing a safe 
place of deposit for wills and for all information relating to the 
estates of deceased persons. It is usually the county probate 
court which attends to this. 




COMMUNITY CIVICS 


178 

23 . Courts which keep a Record of Deeds and Mortgages. 

The only way a person can prove that he owns a certain house, 
or piece of land, or any other property that he cannot carry 
around with him, is to have some written statement showing 
that it belongs to him. The official name for such a written 
statement is a deed. But because pieces of paper may get lost 
or be destroyed, government requires transfers of property to 
be recorded in a government office. This office is usually called 
the registry of deeds. There is one such office for each county. 

Other important written statements which affect private 
property are called mortgages. When a person borrows money 
from another and pledges as security house or land, the pledge 
is called a mortgage. In case the money debt cannot be paid, 
the property has to be forfeited. Unless mortgages, like deeds, 
are recorded where anyone may consult them, much confusion 
may be caused by dishonest or careless persons. They are 
therefore recorded in the office of the registry of deeds or in a 
similar government office. 

24 . One Kind of Courts has the Power to kill Laws. Besides 
the courts which give help in enforcing laws, settling disputes, 
and giving advice, there are courts which have the power to kill 
laws. Not all courts can do this. Only one court in each state 
(the highest court, which in most states is called the supreme 
court, but in certain states the court of appeals), and one 
court for the whole nation (the Supreme Court at Washington), 
have this power. But these courts are kept busy. As we have 
said, there are thousands of laws passed every year. Each of the 
laws passed by Congress must conform to the requirements of 
the Federal Constitution, and each law passed by a state must 
conform to the requirements of both the state constitution and 
the Constitution of the nation. The legislators who make the 
laws ought not, of course, to pass bills that conflict with these 
constitutions. But the men and women who become lawmakers 
for only a few years are farmers, doctors, business men, trades¬ 
men, who do not always fully understand the restrictions of 
state and national constitutions. Therefore many badly made 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


179 


laws are passed. The highest court of each state can be asked 
to decide whether any law passed by the legislature conforms 
to the state constitution; the Supreme Court at Washington 
can be asked to decide whether any law passed by Congress or 



John Marshall, one of our most famous Supreme Court judges 


the forty-eight states conforms to the Federal Constitution. 
If these courts find any law unconstitutional, it is canceled. For 
many years every law passed by Congress to prevent child labor 
was found to be unconstitutional. This did not mean that the 
Supreme Court approved of child labor, but merely that each 
law had violated certain restrictions of the Constitution. 







i8o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


25 . How the Courts deal with Lawbreakers. Laws that are 
properly made specify how lawbreakers shall be punished. But 
only courts can decide that a person has broken a law and must 
be punished. Therefore some way has to be provided to bring 
lawbreakers to court. To do this the people choose, directly or 
indirectly, special officials, sheriffs, constables, and policemen 
to arrest persons, detectives to secure evidence, special attor¬ 
neys to prosecute criminals in county courts, an attorney- 
general to prosecute criminals in the higher courts. It is 
special officials who actually arrest persons suspected of law¬ 
breaking, but anyone can swear to a court official that he be¬ 
lieves a certain person has committed a crime, and the court 
will then issue a legal document called a warrant, which is 
given to a police officer to make the arrest. Once arrested, the 
person is detained for a short time and is brought before a 
court (the kind of court depends on whether he is accused of 
breaking a local ordinance, a state law, or a Federal law). 

Petty offenses, like overspeeding and drunkenness, the judge 
disposes of at once, either finding the person not guilty and 
dismissing him or finding him guilty and deciding how he shall 
be punished. For greater offenses, such as murder, conspiracy, 
forgery, burglary, the person can be held for a special trial 
before a jury. But in every such case it is left to the prose¬ 
cuting attorney to bring the trial about, for these are the officials 
who act for all the people in seeing that lawbreakers are brought 
to trial. If they believe that a person has been wrongly arrested 
or that it will be impossible to get evidence to prove wrong¬ 
doing, they give orders to have the person released; if they be¬ 
lieve he is guilty and can find evidence to prove this, they hold 
him until his case can be tried by a jury. These prosecuting 
attorneys are important officials, for unless they perform their 
work faithfully many a criminal will go unpunished. 

26 . How the Courts deal with Disputes and Similar Matters. 
In civil cases there are no arrests. The daughter who wishes 
her father’s will broken (see page 176) simply applies to the 
court through her lawyer to have this done. The court offi- 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 181 

dais set dates for all such cases, and all the persons concerned 
in the matter (the sons to whom the father left the money and 
persons who were acquainted with the circumstances) are noti¬ 
fied by the court to appear at a specified time to give whatever 
information they possess that bears on the case. Reasons for 
and against breaking the will are given, and the judge decides 
what shall be done. Both sides must abide by his decision un¬ 
less there is evidence that he has been unfair or has overlooked 
some of the facts, in which event either the daughter or the 
sons can request a higher court to hear the case over again. 

27 . Each State has its Own System of Courts. It has been 
left to each state to organize as many different courts as it 
needs. Therefore no two states have exactly the same system 
of courts. Several states have permitted cities to have special 
night courts to dispose at once of persons arrested on minor 
charges. In San Francisco recently a "court of little claims” 
was organized to deal with cases involving $50 or less, the 
judge disposing of each case as it came up. In several states 
there are special land courts to deal with disputes about owner¬ 
ship of land, foreclosure of mortgage on land, etc. A new court 
known as the "commercial frauds court” was opened in New 
York City in 1922, whose work is indicated by a newspaper’s 
account of the first case: 

The first case that came before the court, which had a 
regular calendar showing about half a dozen cases pending, 
was that in which the Blank Hotel Construction Company 
was complainant against John Doe, one of its former sales¬ 
men, charging that he had falsely represented that the con¬ 
cern was insolvent. 

The states which have a large population and many different 
kinds of work life need more courts than states in which work 
life is simple, because the more people and the more work, the 
greater the number of laws. Therefore it is not surprising that 
New York City, second to London, is the "home of more courts 
than any other place in the world.” 


182 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


28 . A Special Kind of Laws. There is a part of the machin¬ 
ery of government that consists of a curious kind of laws. 
They are laws which nations pass, and are called treaties. The 
less important treaties are usually called conventions. We 
are most familiar with the kind of treaty that nations make at 
the end of a war. Important as these are, however, they are of 
little significance compared with the hundreds of other treaties 
that are drawn up in ordinary peace years. It is treaties which 
make it possible for an American to travel in foreign countries, 
to receive his mail in foreign countries, to buy and sell, to study 
or teach in them. In the matter of mail alone there have been 
scores of treaties with every nation of the world. Rate of 
postage, rules for sending money by mail, parcel post, un¬ 
claimed letters, have been decided in this way. It was a treaty 
between Canada and the United States that decided how the 
water power of Niagara should be divided, and a treaty with 
Mexico that made possible a bridge over the Rio Grande River 
between the two countries. The Postmaster-General drafts the 
treaties relating to post-office matters and the Secretary of State 
all others, but both are acting for the president. All treaties 
must be submitted by the president to the Senate. A two-thirds 
vote of the members is required to "pass” a treaty. When 
treaties have been drawn up by other countries and submitted 
to the president, he has power to reject them without consulting 
the Senate, but he cannot accept them without securing the 
Senate’s vote of approval. 

29 . The People in Unofficial Organizations supplement Gov¬ 
ernment Machinery. Although this chapter is a discussion of 
the machinery of government, we need to point out, as we have 
many times already and shall many times again, that govern¬ 
ment would fail often if it were not for the machinery that 
private citizens and societies form to supplement and assist 
government machinery. This is as true of lawmaking and law 
enforcing as of any other service of government. 

In New York City when during the World War there were not 
enough regular police and detectives to protect the city, volun- 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 183 

teer, unpaid citizens helped guard the city under the supervision 
of the police department. When crime increased alarmingly 
in the United States it was an unofficial organization, the Amer¬ 
ican Bar Association, that gathered information showing that 
(1) 85,000 people had been slain in the United States in a dec¬ 
ade; (2) more than 90 per cent of these had been killed with 
revolvers; and that therefore laws were needed prohibiting the 
manufacture and sale of revolvers except for government use. 
For several years Cleveland has had an organization called the 
Cleveland Association for Criminal Justice, and Chicago an 
organization called the Chicago Crime Commission. When 
they found that a policeman was negligent or that a judge was 
not attending to his duty they published the facts in the news¬ 
papers. They also issued special reports showing what reforms 
were needed. Because of a crime wave in New York City with 
which the police seemed unable to cope, the Chamber of Com¬ 
merce formed a similar organization of private citizens. 

30 . Government Machinery determined by the Ideals of the 
People. Every nation in the world has government machinery 
and an army of officials to operate the machinery. Germany, 
France, England, China—all the nations, large and small- 
have lawmakers and officials to carry out the laws. The chief 
difference in nations is not in the amount of government ma¬ 
chinery or its cost, but in its purpose. The kind of government 
machinery in any nation depends on the ideals of the people. 

Because the liberty ideal is one of the most important ideals 
of the American people, all their laws are made with this in 
mind. Laws cannot make people alike (equals) in health, abil¬ 
ity, and industry, but they can give all the people the chance 
to make the most of themselves. Not every law helps bring this 
about and sometimes a law that hinders this is passed, but the 
ideal is always in the minds and hearts of true Americans and 
sooner or later they repair their mistakes. The average person is 
so used to the liberty made for him by the nation that he does 
not understand how wonderful a thing has been accomplished 
for him. It is because the humblest letter of the humblest per- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


184 

son is carried for the same price with the same speed as the 
letter of the richest person; because the one-room house of the 
poor man receives the same protection from the police, the fire 
department, and the board of health; because hotels, trains, 
roadways, are available to rich and poor alike; because libraries 
and schools, churches and lecture halls, are open to anyone and 
everyone; because savings banks pay the same interest on the 
few dollars of the poor man as on the thousands of dollars of 
the rich man, that the people of the United States have true 
liberty. And they have true liberty because the people have 
made the kind of machinery to bring this about. 

31 . Helping win Happiness. Happiness is something no law 
can bring about, but the men who wrote and signed the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence knew that a government could and should 
do much to help people in trying to find happiness ("pursuit 
of happiness,” they called it). Men in all the centuries past 
have found that happiness comes chiefly from work—work that 
is worth doing, especially work that is to benefit others as well 
as themselves; therefore those who drew up the Constitution, 
those who made the early laws of the states and nation, saw to 
it that the laws passed were those which would make work life 
possible for all the people under the best conditions. The early 
planners of the nation also knew that true happiness can come 
to workers only if they have the right kind of homes and leisure 
in which to enjoy them. So gradually, as year after year men 
have gathered in Washington, and as other groups have gath¬ 
ered in the different state capitals to make laws, they have 
passed the kind of laws that would protect the home, guard it 
from the curious as well as the malicious, restrain employers 
from making working hours that interfered with the enjoyment 
of the home, and create opportunities for adding to the home 
life some of the beautiful things. 

There has never been a time when it was not the purpose of 
every government to give these things—long and healthy life, 
the fullest possible liberty, and opportunities to pursue happi¬ 
ness—to some of the people. But the United States was the 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 185 

first government to undertake to give these to all the people. 
This was a tremendous undertaking, for it meant that all the 
people must help decide how to bring these things to pass. It is 
because the people are often shortsighted and ignorant that we 
at times get wrong kinds of government machinery. But this 
is not the chief danger. The great peril is that because of 
the thoughtlessness of the people a few will succeed in making 
the kind of machinery that will be for the benefit of the few 
and not for the good of the many. The nation can be wrecked 
when a few get control of the machinery of government and 
change it to meet their selfish needs. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter through rapidly to get a view of the whole. Then 
make an outline of it, which you should keep in mind as you study it 
by sections. 

2 . If possible observe factory machinery in action. If this is not 
possible, study an automobile, a tractor, a sewing machine, or some 
common piece of machinery in action. Be able to tell to the class or to 
discuss with other students (1) the power that moved the machinery, 
(2) the purpose of it, (3) its complicated or simple design, (4) the results 
obtained. This study should help you understand that "machinery” 
always consists of many closely related parts, made by many different 
persons, and requiring great skill to use wisely. Show how government 
machinery is not unlike that of a factory. 

3 . Discuss voting (1) as the means by which the makers of govern¬ 
ment machinery are selected, (2) as one of the few ways in which 
everyone can help make laws, (3) as a way in which the people in one 
part of the nation can help those in a distant part. 

4 . For what government officials do the people in your community 
vote? When do these elections take place? How long would it take 
you to get to the place of voting ? Secure or make copies of the different 
ballots to use in voting on make-believe candidates and issues in which 
the class is interested. What do the national Constitution and your 
state constitution say about voting and elections? 

5 . Explain what kind of preparation for voting is necessary. Are 
there any organizations in your community that help the people select 
good candidates ? If there are, find out all you can about one of them. 


i86 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


6. Re-read all the paragraphs of text dealing with laws, find out some 
of the most recent laws passed in your state, and show by these that 
"laws are as fascinating as scenes in a novel.” 

7 . Explain, as you would to a pupil in a lower grade, that laws tell 
what kind of people a nation has. 

8. Tell how a law is passed by (i) Congress, (2) your state legisla¬ 
ture, (3) your local lawmaking body. 

9 . Turn to the Constitution in the Appendix (pp. i-xvi) and find 
what it has to say about lawmaking and courts. 

10 . In Chapter IV (see page 95) you compiled from the Congressional 
Directory a list of the executive departments, boards, and commissions 
of the national government. To make your notebook record complete 
add to it data about the lawmaking and law-enforcing parts of the gov¬ 
ernment. Consult this Directory, other books of reference, and the 
Constitution for information covering these points: 

a. Senators : how and when chosen, qualifications, term of office, 
names of the senators from your state. 

b. Representatives : how and when chosen, qualifications, term of 
office, number of congressional districts in your state, names of your 
state’s representatives. 

c. (1) Supreme Court; (2) Circuit Court of Appeals; (3) District 
Court: number of judges, how and when appointed, term of office, chief 
duties, where sessions are held. 

11 . Secure from your state manual and other books of reference simi¬ 
lar information about the lawmaking and law-enforcing parts of your 
state government to add to the data obtained for Chapter IV, page 96. 

12 . Let each pupil ask his parents or some business man or wage 
earner of the community what new law or change in a present law they 
think most needed (a) to aid work life, ( b ) to aid home life. Let three 
pupils be assigned to copy down these suggestions and select from them 
the two that seem most helpful. One of these should relate to work life 
and one to home life. This pupils’ committee should next phrase each 
of these in the form of a law (as if they were preparing it to submit to 
the legislature). A copy should be placed on the bulletin board or where 
all can consult it. Then on a certain day set by the teacher the class will 
organize itself into a legislature (probably it would not be wise to 
attempt a legislature of two houses unless the class is large) and argue 
for and against the bills, finally taking a vote. The teacher is to have 
power of veto and must in case of veto give the reasons for such action. 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


187 

13 . Find out from the latest issue of the official manual of your state 
how many and what kind of courts your state has. Where is the nearest 
police court (which is a state court) ? the nearest county court (which 
is a state court) ? the district court (which is a Federal court) ? For 
large cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the state has created 
special courts. What special courts does your state have? 

14 . In connection with the study of laws the newspaper may be 
effectively used in the following way: Have the class divided into three 
groups, one searching for news items which deal with the making of new 
laws or the repeal of old ones, the second searching for news of persons 
who have broken some law, and the third searching for items about court 
trials and decisions. This search will emphasize the character of local 
ordinances and the problems that confront a judge. 

15 . During the course of the year you will find many fine-print legal 
notices in your newspapers. All the pupils should look for such notices, 
cut them out, and turn them over to a committee of two members of the 
class who should be assigned the task of pasting them in a "legal” scrap¬ 
book for use of the whole class. These clippings should include notices 
of the filing of a will, the appointment of an administrator, an appeal for 
guardianship, bankruptcy notices, and any official notices of any govern¬ 
ment department. 

16 . Read carefully several such newspaper notices, giving attention to 

a. The formality and dignity of the language used. It is not neces¬ 
sary to try to understand all the technical terms, like adjudicated , but it 
will be interesting to know that for a long time in England, from which 
we get most of our law customs, the language of the law was Latin, and 
that in changing to English many of the words of Latin origin have been 
retained. 

b. The extreme exactness of the language used. Note how many 
different items of information are given in a few words. 

17 . Study the bankruptcy notices with a view to finding out how laws 
aim to protect the poor man who has been overtaken by misfortune. 
The reading of certain passages in Dickens’s "Little Dorrit” will remind 
the class how much is now done to protect the poor man. 

18 . Turn to your history and read the Declaration of Independence. 
Discuss the meaning of the sentence containing the expression "life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Think of different ways in which- 
our government protects and prolongs life, provides opportunities for 
securing liberty, and gives help in finding happiness. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT — TAXPAYING 

1. Taxpaying an Important Step in making and running 
the Machinery of Government. One of the most unpopular 
things in any country is taxes. In other words, paying a bill is 
always less pleasant than buying goods and using them. Many 
people grumble about the high cost of government without real¬ 
izing that the pleasures which they every day enjoy are worth 
to them a hundred times more than the taxes they pay. Often a 
single thing that the government does for a family is worth the 
total tax paid by it; for example, the pure-food law, which 
protects the health of the family by making it a crime to sell 
adulterated or impure foods. Some of the chief reasons why 
taxes are so unpopular are: 

i. Many Americans believe that in a free country each person should 
have as few burdens as possible. Such people do not realize that every 
time they demand of their town meeting, city council, state or national 
legislature, that a new law be passed, they are taxing themselves. The 
people wanted and demanded a Federal law providing mothers’ pensions 
for widowed mothers in straightened circumstances. To pay these pen¬ 
sions and to pay the officials who were to attend to the task meant a 
little heavier tax for every person in the United States. The people 
wanted and demanded an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting 
the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. The people of many 
states demanded that their state legislatures vote a bonus to be paid 
to all their ex-soldiers. The enforcement of these laws meant a heavy 
tax on every taxpayer. 

Every person should have it firmly fixed in his mind that what the 
legislators whom he helps choose do in each session will surely affect 
his pocketbook. If he is to have any say about how much the town, 
state, and nation take from his purse, he must first keep informed as to 
the bills that are likely to be passed, and use his influence to prevent 
or hasten their passage. 


188 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 



© Keystone View Co. 

Government offices must be housed in well-equipped buildings. It is the 
people’s money that builds them and keeps them in good condition 

the people pay, not immediately after they, are made, but for a long 
series of years thereafter. The new schoolhouse in which many pupils 
are studying this book will be paid for next year and for several suc¬ 
ceeding years by the people of the town. 

3. A third reason that taxes are so unpopular with some people is 
that they want "something for nothing.” Many believe that govern¬ 
ment has some mysterious source by which it can pay for things, others 
think that the^rich should pay all the taxes. These are the people who 
misuse public-library books, strew papers and peanut shells in public 
parks and on the sidewalks. They abuse the rented houses in which 
they live, waste city water, and in a hundred careless or malicious 
ways help raise the taxes of the whole community. They do not know 


2. Perhaps the next most common reason why taxes are unpopular 
is that the people seldom pay for things when they have them. In 
i 9 i 7~ i 9 i 8, when the United States was actually having war, it was 
easy for the people to understand the need of heavy taxes, but they 
did not realize that as long as they lived they would be paying war 
taxes. In a recent year Congress and many of the states appropriated 
large sums of money for improving harbors. For all such improvements 





















COMMUNITY CIVICS 


190 

that to place a tax only on the rich would be to change the government 
from a democracy to an autocracy. In a democracy no legal discrimina¬ 
tion can be made against any class of people. To tax only the rich would 
make the poor people the oppressors. The people who advocate such a 
method of taxing do not understand that in a short time they them¬ 
selves would have to pay heavier taxes than ever/ for if the rich were 
forced to pay all the expenses of the government,—for all the new 
roads, new fire engines, new schoolhouses, and school-teachers’ salaries, 
—it would take so much of their money that in a short time they also 
would belong to the poor class. No one class could or should pay all 
the taxes of a government which is made by all the people and helps 
all the people. 

2. Taxes are Necessary because there can never be Some¬ 
thing for Nothing. There is no such thing as something for 
nothing. The only "free” thing America has ever offered, as 
we pointed out in Chapter II, was space. Everything else had 
to be purchased at the high price of hard labor. Today there is 
not even space to be had for nothing. Space, buildings, con¬ 
veniences, assistance, all have to be paid for either in hard work 
or in a money equivalent. Land and buildings we pay for in 
money; conveniences and assistance we pay for in money, 
and when the conveniences and assistance that we pay for 
happen to be furnished by the government, we call them taxes. 
There can be no government without taxes, and the more gov¬ 
ernment does for the people, the heavier the taxes are bound to 
be. As we have seen, in Chapter II, the true American citizens 
in their work and home life help themselves toward success in 
every way possible. But they have found it difficult or incon¬ 
venient to do many things alone or through private organiza¬ 
tions, and have made government machinery to do these for 
them. 

Herein lies the secret of high taxes or low taxes. The more 
people do for themselves or do through private organizations, 
the less they will have to pay in taxes to the government. 
Whenever the people want to go back to the days when each 
man dug his own well, planted his own fields, cured his own 
hams, taught his own children, they can reduce taxes almost to 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


191 



the vanishing point. And at any time they can greatly reduce 
taxes by getting along with the old roads or inadequate fire 
machinery. Or they can form societies to build better roads 
and buy new fire machinery. But in both cases each person, 
rich or poor, must pay taxes—although we are not accustomed 
to calling them that. Going without good roads or making good 
roads, independently of 
government, costs time 
and money. Old roads 
consume valuable time 
in traveling and wear 
out vehicles more rap¬ 
idly ; inadequate fire 
machinery results in 
disastrous fires that 
destroy or delay work. 

All such delays and 
disasters cost time and 
money which equal if 
they do not exceed what 
the people would pay 
for taxes. If the worker 
gets help through pri¬ 
vate associations to 
which he belongs, he 
must either pay dues 
or give time, or both. 

3. One Way of 
keeping Taxes Down. 

Taxes either of time 
or of money are inevitable. But there is danger that the people 
will transfer to the government some of the things they should 
do for themselves. Rather than pay the price of hard work 
necessary to secure certain things for themselves many persons 
prefer to have the government provide them. Many people 
want the state or the nation to provide such helps as old-age 


© Clark Equipment Co. 

Without the roads through wonderful gorges 
built by the people’s tax money, some of the 
greatness of America would be lost to us. 
(From painting by Maxfield Parrish) 




192 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


pensions and unemployment insurance. In other words they 
want the government to come to their assistance when they are 
out of work or when they are old and moneyless. Unfortunately 
there are many persons in the United States like the man who 
was found to have asked for and received aid from nineteen 
different government and private agencies. The true American, 
however, wants independence all the years of his life; that is, 
he wants to feel that in his old age and in the dark, jobless 
days he can still be master of his fate. He wants of government 
laws that stimulate trade and protect his savings, so that there 
will always be work opportunities for those who will prepare 
for them and search for them. 

4. Efficient Government Officials are never too Expensive. 

The chief concern of each person in this matter should be to 
see not that government does everything possible for the people, 
but that the people require government to do for them only 
those things which they find it impossible or impracticable to 
do for themselves. But they should see to it that whatever gov¬ 
ernment does is well done. At the cheapest, efficient government 
assistance will be expensive, so that the time will never come 
in this country when large sums of money will not have to 
be collected to defray the expenses of government. The kind 
of men who are needed as heads of the various government 
departments are not cheap men. They are hundred-thousand- 
dollar-a-year men, but we often ask them to give us a hundred 
thousand dollars’ worth of service for five and ten thousand 
dollars. Consequently we do not always get the best men, 
but are satisfied with those who, while they may be honest 
and earnest, do not have the ability to lead the way to ad¬ 
vancement. We often have heavy taxes because we have cheap 
officials. On the other hand we sometimes have heavy taxes 
because officials are willingly wasteful or dishonest in appro¬ 
priating and spending money. 

5. Making Taxes that help Work Life and Home Life. The 

next concern of the people should be to see that taxes are laid 
in a way to distribute the payment as fairly as possible. To 



THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 193 

lay taxes that will be fair to everybody is one of the most diffi¬ 
cult tasks connected with government and one which each pupil 
will some day have to face. The fairest taxes are those which 
help and do not hinder the work life and home life of the nation. 
Often, however, whether a tax is fair or not cannot be known 


If people would be content without telephones, electric lights, running water, 
and bathrooms, as our grandmothers were, taxes would not be so high 

until it is tried. In 1824 most of the vessels engaged in the 
rich trade with China discharged their cargoes at the port of 
Boston, selling their goods at the wharves by auction. The state 
legislature of that year, in spite of the protest of the merchants 
of the city, voted a tax of 1 per cent on all auction sales of 
merchandise. Several years later the tax was repealed, but it 
was too late—shipowners had taken their cargoes to New York, 
where there was no tax, and could not be persuaded to make 













194 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



another change. Later a similar tax laid in Pennsylvania drove 
from Philadelphia the vessels from beyond the Cape of Good 
Hope which had used this as their port of entry. In 1919 the 
excess-profits tax levied by Congress taxed many businesses so 
heavily that they earned no excess profits that could be taxed. 

It is never the intention of wise legislators to restrain legiti¬ 
mate industry or to cripple the home. They would be penny 


© Brown Bros. 

Trial by jury is one of the means of safeguarding liberty. But such trials 
are expensive and must be paid for by the people in taxes 

wise and pound foolish if they destroyed with unwise taxes the 
very things they were striving to build up with wise laws. To 
us in America the tax that France has laid for many years on 
windows and doors seems a "pound foolish” tax, for we believe 
that a house to be a home must have abundant light and air, 
and that France has therefore taken from her people more 
dollars’ worth of health and enjoyment than she has received of 
profit in other ways. 

6. Many Tax Experiments have been tried in America. Prob¬ 
ably every tax experiment that could be conceived has been tried 
in some part of the United States. A Virginian who made a trip 






















THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


195 

through the South and Middle West in 1840 said that "in almost 
every state lotteries have been authorized by law to aid in build¬ 
ing colleges and academies, for making roads and bridges.” By 
an act passed by the New York legislature in 1807 "provision 
was made for the drawing of four successive Lotteries each of 
$25,000 and from the avails of these the sum of $12,500 was to 
be paid to the Regents, to be distributed among the Academies, 
the residue going toward the formation of a Common School 
Fund.” It seems strange that an amusement which is now 
illegal in every state should once have been the legal means of 
paying for government. It also seems a little strange that law¬ 
breaking and crime should be the sources of taxation, yet this 
has always been one source of revenue. For example, a colonial 
law of 1771 contained the following restrictions: 

No person in Boston to set up the Business of Baking 
Bread for Sale, but where the Justices and Select Men shall 
allow; on Penalty of £40 for every six Month’s, half to 
the Poor and half to the Informer. 

Today lawbreakers pay fines for such offenses as overspeeding, 
peddling without a license, making false income-tax returns, or 
selling underweight. In spite of the heavy fines paid by law¬ 
breakers all this money, and more, goes to pay the expenses 
of the officials who enforce the laws, so that there must be 
many other taxes levied, not on destructive acts but on the 
wholesome activities of the people. 

7 . Some Taxes not paid by Everyone. At one time many 
taxes were paid only by those who benefited from the con¬ 
veniences offered by government. For instance, in New York 
City in the Dutch days "every seventh house was obliged to hang 
out a pole with a lantern and lighted candle on the nights when 
there was no moon. . . . The expense of the lights was divided 
among the seven householders adjacent to the lantern.” There 
were many years when most roads and bridges had tollgates at 
which travelers were required to pay a small fee (toll) for the 
privilege of using the road or bridge. There are still such 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



196 

bridges and roads in certain parts of the United States. Until 
1922 there was a toll bridge on the Lincoln Highway where it 
crosses the Susquehanna between Wrightsville and Columbia 
in Pennsylvania, but that has now been opened freely to every¬ 
one. The idea of the toll charges was that it was a matter of 
justice to make those who used the roads and bridges pay for 
them, but the people soon learned that some things benefit all 


There are two ways of paying for conveniences like roads—the indirect way 
by taxes and the direct way by toll charges 

the people whether they use them or not, and that all the people 
should therefore help pay for them. Roads, sidewalks, bridges, 
street lights, all are conveniences that benefit everybody. The 
doctor, the grocer, the mailman, come to us easily because of 
the roads and bridges, and the man or woman who uses them 
the least may benefit the most from the use that others make 
of them. 

There are still certain taxes levied by government only 
on those who receive benefit from the conveniences. A fee is 
charged by the Federal government for the use of the Panama 
Canal, also by certain states for the use of canals; fees are also 




THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


197 


charged by some states and cities for the use of docks owned 
by them. For the most part, however, the custom is to include 
the cost of all the government services in the general tax levy so 
that everyone shall pay directly or indirectly for the things that 
make all the people more prosperous. The one disadvantage in 
this is that many people do not appreciate what they pay for in 
this indirect way. Boys would not smash street lights if they 
had to pay for the smashed glass. Families would not litter 
roads and ditches with refuse if they had to pay each week for 
having the roads cleaned. People would be more careful of 
matches, cigars, and gasoline if they had to pay the fire depart¬ 
ment for putting out fires. In one state so many fires were found 
to be due to carelessness or negligence that it was proposed to 
pass a law requiring families to pay for the services of the fire 
department in all such cases. No such law has yet been passed, 
but a remedy is needed for the wasteful use or misuse of public 
conveniences. The best remedy is knowledge: knowledge of 
the cost of streets and other helps, of the fact that carelessness 
takes its tax not only from the man who is careless but from 
all those who are careful. 

8. Licenses and Fees One Form of Taxes. In a recent year 
the taxes in one state averaged $ 54 - 5 ° f° r each person. These 
were levied on land, houses, furniture, incomes, corporations. 
Much money was also raised by means of licenses and fees. 
Here are a few of the things for which fees were charged: 


Billiard table (for profit).$25 

Bowling-alley. 10 

Dealer in playing-cards. 20 

Concert to which admission is charged .... 10 

Cotton-buyer. 2 5 

Seller of eyeglasses.. • • • 5 

Fortune-teller. 5 ° 

Fruit stand. 10 


Gypsies and traders traveling from place to place, 

dwelling in tents or vehicles. 

Sellers of sewing machines. 

iln each and every county in which they do business. 











COMMUNITY CIVICS 


198 

Such a list merely emphasizes the fact that the people try to 
make all kinds of work and workers share in the expense of the 
government. This list also illustrates another habit of the 
American people—that of taxing the unnecessary occupations 
more heavily than the useful ones. To make traveling gypsies 
pay a fee of $100 and the seller of sewing machines only $25 is 
also reasonable, for the gypsies add nothing to the welfare of 
the community, while sewing machines add to the comfort and 
prosperity of the home. 

9 . Three Sets of Taxes: National, State, Local. Since there 
are certain things which the national government does for us 
and other things that the state and local governments do, we 
have to pay national, state, and local (county, parish, village, 
city, town) taxes. The national government must lay taxes in 
accordance with the requirements of the Federal Constitution, 
the state government must lay taxes according to the restric¬ 
tions placed in its constitution (which have been limited by the 
Federal Constitution), and the local government must also lay 
taxes according to the requirements of the state constitution. 
The national government taxes certain imports, tobacco, jew¬ 
elry, cosmetics, and other articles, the list being changed from 
time to time. In 1913 the Constitution was amended to allow 
the national government to tax inheritances, personal incomes, 
and business profits under certain conditions. Therefore today 
the expenses of the Federal government are met by 

1. Taxes on imports, called tariff duties. 

2. Internal-revenue taxes on incomes, inheritances, business profits, 
and certain luxuries. 

3. Fines for infringement of Federal laws; for example, selling liquor. 

In every port are stationed groups of government officials known 
as "customs-service employees,” whose work is to attend to the 
collection of import duties. To collect income, inheritance, and 
business-profits taxes the nation has been divided into income- 
tax districts with a collector and a large office force of as¬ 
sistants at some central place in each district. Each of these 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


199 

ports and income-tax districts receives the tax money and 
forwards it to the Treasury headquarters at Washington. The 
tax money which the national government collects as fines 
is paid to federal-court officers and by them forwarded to the 
Treasury at Washington to be used for government expenses. 



© Keystone View Co. 

Since the Federal government has taxed incomes thousands of persons are now 
paying taxes for the first time 


10. Laying and Collecting Taxes is a Business in Itself. The 
laying and collection of these taxes by the Federal government 
is itself a vast business requiring thousands of expert workers. 
In the first place, it is not enough that the Constitution gives 
power to lay tariff duties and income taxes; Congress must say 
just how much these duties and taxes shall be. Therefore much 
of the time of Congress is taken up with revising old tax laws 
or making new ones, specifying what incomes shall be taxed and 









200 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


how heavy this tax shall be. After the work of Congress is 
completed, the Treasury Department organizes its workers to 
meet the requirements of the new law; it must provide printed 
copies of this law to distribute to the employees who will collect 
these taxes and to all the American and foreign business con¬ 
cerns who will be affected by them. It must employ expert ac¬ 
countants, expert bookkeepers, expert interpreters of tax laws. 
The Department of Justice must be ready to give legal inter¬ 
pretations of the laws and to decide minor disputed points. It 
must also have a sufficient force of prosecuting agents and court 
officials to attend to tax dodgers. To lay and collect the taxes 
of the Federal government is the work of Congress, the Treasury 
Department, and the Department of Justice. 

State taxes are of many kinds and vary greatly in the 
different states. States cannot lay an import and export tax, 
but they can, and some of them do, lay an income tax, so that 
in certain states today the people must pay both a state and 
a national income tax. In most states land and buildings, furni¬ 
ture, and farm stock are taxed. In addition to these property 
taxes, in some states there are poll taxes; taxes on public- 
service corporations, called franchises; on automobiles, called 
licenses or registration fees. To make state tax laws and to 
collect the taxes requires a large force of government officials, 
some of whom are 

1. The state legislature, which passes the laws dealing with special 
taxes. 

2. The budget official (sometimes a special bureau), which prepares 
a yearly estimate of the amount of money needed for the coming year. 

3. The comptroller, who has charge of the investing and spending of 
the state funds. 

4. The treasurer, who has charge of the state funds and pays them 
out on order of the comptroller. 

It is usually the comptroller or a corresponding official who col¬ 
lects such special taxes as those on public-service corporations. 
Such special state taxes as automobile-registration fees are col¬ 
lected by the state highway department. 


THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


201 


It is left to the local government—either county, town, city, 
or village—to collect taxes on land, buildings, and personal 
property. But, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, the com¬ 
munity, whether it is a great city like New York City or a tiny 
village like Smithville, has no power either to make laws or 
collect taxes unless such power has been definitely given it by 
the state. Therefore most of the tax machinery in the com¬ 
munity is collecting machinery and not laying machinery. The 
local officials concerned with taxation are 

1. Treasurer 5. License board 

2. Board of assessors 6. Other officials, varying in different 

3. Budget commission communities 

4. Collectors 

11. The Budget one of the Latest Helps to Efficient Govern¬ 
ment. As the years have come and gone, government officials 
have proved poor spenders of the people’s money. This has really 
been the fault of the people themselves, for they had provided 
no orderly plan that would prevent legislatures from spending 
extravagantly or unwisely. There was no way by which the 
ordinary citizen could tell where the tax money went. He could 
learn, for instance, that $3,000,000 was paid by the citizens as 
taxes into the city treasury, but how most of this was spent 
he could not find out. This was because the government system 
of bookkeeping was bad. But a group of people began to in¬ 
sist that the first step toward protection against unwise spend¬ 
ing and dishonesty was the budget system. In other words, 
planned spending should be substituted for haphazard spend¬ 
ing. It is so simple a remedy that many people still fail to 
see how powerful a thrift weapon it is. The budget plan means 
merely a board or bureau which gets together, first, the facts 
about all the necessary expenses of the city or state or nation, 
and, second, facts about the best ways of securing the money 
to meet these expenses. After studying these two sets of facts 
the budget makers decide on the amount of money that must 
be raised by taxation, and specify for what purpose it is to be 


202 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


spent. This estimate is called the budget, and is the basis of 
the money which the common council, the board of supervisors, 
the state legislature, and Congress vote to spend. 

12 . What the Budget can Accomplish. Since the budget is 
always published, the people can compare each year’s budget 
with the preceding one. If a new set of officials have come into 



It is the tax money of many generations of Americans that built and maintains 
the White House at Washington 


office and the estimates are very much more or very much less 
than those of their predecessors, the people can demand the 
reason. Greater expenditure, however, does not always mean 
graft or dishonesty. Often it means only efficiency. If a large 
budget stands for things that will make better homes and will 
bring more prosperity to farms, factories, mines, and the other 
industries of the people, it is a wise budget. A small budget 
that results in poorly paid school-teachers, inadequate water 
supply, unsafe bridges, worn-out highways, too few building 
inspectors, inexpert health officers, is an extravagant budget. 










THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


203 


Unfortunately, however, in the past many large budgets have 
represented extravagance, thoughtlessness, and sometimes brib¬ 
ery, graft, and fraud. 

13. Our National Budget. The United States was the last 
great nation to have a national budget. This was not accom¬ 
plished until Harding’s administration, although attempts to 
bring this about had been made for more than twenty years. 
Taft tried a plan of this kind when he appointed a Commis¬ 
sioner of Economy and Efficiency, but strange to say this was 
bitterly fought and practically killed. The national budget 
bureau has a "director of the budget,” who is appointed by the 
president and not only is responsible for getting together each 
year’s estimates of the money needed to run the various depart¬ 
ments, but is supposed to suggest ways whereby the departments 
can save money. It seems strange that it should have had to re¬ 
main for the director of the budget to suggest such economies as 
one that was reported in 1922. The Department of Commerce 
had arranged to forward by rail to the Pacific coast three buoys 
at a cost of $2362.28, while the director of the budget found 
that they could be sent by water, via the Panama Canal, for 
$576. The mere fact that such occurrences as this are published 
in the annual budget report will make the heads of departments 
more alert to prevent waste. 

14. Each Person a Budget Critic. Important as a budget is 
there is no magic in it. It will accomplish only what the people 
insist that it accomplish. If year after year the annual budget 
is published and only the politicians read it, then dishonesty 
and inefficiency will creep in. Merely to read the figures, how¬ 
ever, will do little good. To be correctly informed is the first 
step, to act in some way is the second. There are several ways 
of acting: 

1. Writing to the local newspapers, calling attention to what seems to 
be extravagance or discrepancy. 

2. Writing to the mayor, governor, or to one’s representative in the 
common council, the board of supervisors, the state legislature, or 
Congress, calling attention to the matter. 


204 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3. Getting other people to write also. 

4. Joining some such organization as a taxpayers’ league or a good- 
government association, which has committees who closely follow up 
the expenditures of the different government departments. 

5. Discussing matters of taxation and expenditure with one’s friends 
and acquaintances often enough to get familiarity with the subject. 

15. Studying a Community by Means of the Taxes it Pays. 

One way of learning about a community is to find out how it 
spends its money. The following shows how each dollar of tax 
money of a small city was spent one year: 


State tax and assessment.$0,197 

Public schools.0.189 

Public works.0.162 

Debt requirements.0.143 

Police department.0.078 

Fire department.0.069 

County courts.0.035 

Hospitals and health.0.034 

Institutions and poor relief.0.03 

General government.0.027 

Public recreation.0.024 

Public library.0.012 

$1,000 


Get the corresponding figures for your community and examine 
them to see if they help explain why your schools are good or 
poor, why the public library is poorly or well equipped, why 
automobile thieves are not caught, why there are frequent 
attacks of typhoid fever. 

16. How Taxes concern Everyone. Taxes concern every per¬ 
son in the following ways: 

1. Every person either directly or indirectly pays a tax to the govern¬ 
ment. Those persons who do not pay direct taxes pay indirectly when 
they pay for rent, board, clothing, etc. This is because all those who 
pay direct taxes on land, buildings, automobiles, or incomes, charge 
more for the rent of land and buildings or for conveying foodstuffs by 
automobile. Even those persons who do not have money to spend 
because they are supported by others, really "pay” by having fewer 















THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT 


205 

things and less desirable things than would be the case if there were 
no taxes. In one way or another each person pays a tax. 

2. Every person can help reduce taxes in many ways that will cost 
nothing in money and little in time. In the public gardens at Newark, 
New Jersey, one year this sign was erected : 

Citizens, this park is yours. It was planted for you, that the beauty 
of the flowers, trees, and lawn might refresh you. You will therefore 
take care of it. 

The last sentence is the key to the way by which any and every person 
can keep down taxes. It takes only thoughtfulness to refrain from 
leaving papers, fruit skins, etc. on the ground or throwing them any¬ 
where except in receptacles provided for that purpose. And when re¬ 
ceptacles have not been provided it requires only thoughtfulness to 
carry the waste paper or fruit skins to one’s home, where they can be 
disposed of properly. It costs the city of Boston $7000 a year to pay 
men to do nothing but pick up papers which the people have thrown 
away in the Common and Public Garden. Every cent of this could have 
been saved if each person had spent one minute’s thoughtfulness on 
the matter. There are many similar ways of bringing down taxes: 

a. Returning all public-library books promptly and in good condition. 

b. Being as careful of all school property—plumbing, water, desks, 
textbooks, paper, and ink—as one would be of his own property. 

c. Keeping the fruit and shade trees on one’s property and on the 
street or road adjoining this free from destructive insects and diseases. 

d. Notifying the proper officials promptly of any obstruction in the 
streets or any unsanitary condition in streets or yards. 

e. Taking care not to waste water by letting faucets "drip.” 

/. Taking pains with addressing letters and making out money orders 
to save the time of postal clerks in adjusting mistakes. 

g. Paying all taxes promptly to save second notices. 

3. Every person can belong to some association which gets informa¬ 
tion about the officials who have to do with the assessing and collecting 
of taxes to see that no dishonesty is practiced. In Chicago one year 
the Teachers’ Federation found that the city officials were not assess¬ 
ing certain property according to the same standard as other property, 
and that as a consequence many taxpayers were paying more than they 
should and many less. In some cases buildings were not taxed at all. 
By taking legal action the teachers caused $500,000 to be added to the 
revenue of the city. Any wide-awake association that exists for the 
good of the community can keep in touch with the tax-levying and 
collecting machinery. 


206 community civics 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1. What is a tax? Show what will make taxes high. Does a high 
tax rate always mean that a community is a better place in which to 
live than one in which the tax rate is low? 

2 . Get last year’s tax statement for your community and find out 
how much of it went for (i) schools, (2) streets, (3) parks and play¬ 
grounds, (4) other improvements. 

3 . (a) What kinds of taxes does your state have? Are corporations 
taxed ? Be sure to learn whether the oil, coal, or iron ore produced in 
your state is taxed. ( b ) What taxes in the form of licenses and fees 
does your local government levy ? 

4 . Make a list of all the government help received by your family 
(through post office, street lights, public library, etc.). Then consider 
what these would cost if you had to supply them for yourself. 

5 . Do your community and state have a budget? How successful 
has this proved? If pupils cannot secure this information from their 
parents, the class should appoint a committee to consult persons who 
will know, and then make a report to the class. The local newspaper 
editor, the president or one of the directors of your local bank, are 
persons who can help you get information. 

6. Consult the official manuals of your state and community and 
from them compile a list of all the officials concerned with taxes. Who 
are concerned with the taxes of the national government ? 

7 . When in 1918 Caruso, the famous Italian tenor, sent to the gov¬ 
ernment his first check in payment of his income tax, he expressed his 
gratitude for what America had done for him and his pleasure in paying 
his share of government expenses. The newspapers all over the country 
told of this letter. Can you tell why editors regarded this as news ? 

8. In most churches each member pays as little or as much as he 
wishes toward its support. How do you think this plan would work with 
government ? Read the Appendix (pp. xvii-xviii) and then explain how 
the sections of the Constitution relating to taxes helped make the 
Constitution a success. 

9 . Do you belong to any organizations which require membership 
dues? If so, tell who fixed these dues, to whom they are paid, what 
happens if they are not paid, and for what the money is spent. 

10. The text mentions some of the taxes paid only by those who bene¬ 
fit directly from them. Make a list of other such taxes, as, for example, 
water taxes paid by the owners or renters of property. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 

1. The Community as a Unit of Government. In a preceding 
chapter we have learned that a community is a place where 
people live, work, and find part or all of their pleasures. But 
not every community is a town, village, or city, for a community 
is not always a unit of government. It may be only a small part 
of an incorporated town, city, or county, and may be separated 
from the central part of the legal community by many miles. 
Sometimes there are many communities in a single county, or 
even in a single township. The name of the community is usually 
that of the post office and railroad station, which may be entirely 
different from that of the town or city. For instance, the town 
of North Collins, New York State, once included five different 
communities, each having a separate post office,—Collins, Shir¬ 
ley, Langford, New Oregon, Marshfield,—but all a legal part of 
North Collins. The difference between communities, on the one 
hand, and towns, townships, counties, etc., on the other, is that 
communities represent people, while local government units rep¬ 
resent square miles. A whole county or township might be en¬ 
tirely empty of people and still remain a county or township. 
But a community is always an area where people live and work. 
No state legislature can tell in advance where a community will 
grow up nor how long it will continue to remain there. 

A new community is automatically a part of a county and 
usually of a smaller unit of government. It is these which reach 
out to the community to do certain things for it and to demand 
certain things from it. It is not always satisfactory, however, 
to have the needs of a community dependent on town officials 
many miles away. For this reason, as soon as a community be- 

207 


208 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


comes large enough and prosperous enough, it usually asks the 
state to make it a separate legal community. This is accom¬ 
plished in most cases by a special act of the legislature. If the 
request of the community is granted, it becomes an incorporated 
village, borough, town, or city, with a separate charter, and 
has power to appoint many of its own local officials. 

2. Changing a Community into a Legal Town, Village, or 
City. The process of changing communities into separate legal 
towns, villages, or cities is going on constantly in every state. 
In an official record of New York State one finds many refer¬ 
ences like this: 

Caneadea was formed from Angelica March n, 1808. 
Friendship was taken off in 1815, Rushford in 1816, 
Belfast in 1824. 

In fifty years fifty-one new towns had been incorporated in 
the state of Massachusetts. During that time the petitions of 
more than one hundred communities to be made separate legal 
towns had been refused by the legislature. One community in 
petitioning the state legislature indicated its qualifications for 
becoming a town as follows: 

If permitted to become a new town we shall have a ter¬ 
ritory comprising 3144 acres, leaving over 5000 acres to 
the mother town, ... a population of 1312, 203 voters, 
and about 350 polls, 255 dwellings, 179 barns and stables, 

307 horses and cattle, a church, schoolhouse, library, public 
hall, engine house and equipment, grocery, provision, 
apothecary, and millinery stores, together with all the 
mechanics necessary to supply the wants of the people. 

This shows what one group of people thought constituted the 
kind of community that was capable of governing itself. 

The way in which communities make themselves by develop¬ 
ing various forms of work life, then gradually add the con¬ 
veniences that make for permanence, and finally get permission 
from the state to become a unit of government makes a story 
that is always interesting. 


THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 209 

3. The Different Kinds of Community Government. There 
are many different kinds of legal communities in the United 
States, because there are forty-eight states, and each state 
is permitted to specify how its own communities shall be organ¬ 
ized. The following summary includes an outline of the princi¬ 
pal forms of local government: 

1. The government of the town. The government of the town centers 
in the town meeting (in some states there is no town meeting, all law¬ 
making being left to the county), which is the legislative assembly of 
which all the voters are members. The laws passed by this body are 
called ordinances. In some states the chief local executive officers are 
the selectmen. In other states the chief executive officer of the town, 
who corresponds as nearly as any local official can to the mayor of the 
city and the governor of the state, is the supervisor. He is also the chief 
connecting link with the county, for he is one of the board of county 
supervisors. Therefore in electing him the people are choosing two offi¬ 
cials. The judicial department of the town consists of one person—the 
judge of the justice, or police, court. He is officially known as the justice 
of the peace. 

As you have already learned, no community, whatever it is called,— 
town, borough, village, city,—has any power except what has been given 
it by the state. In general the town has been permitted to do such 
routine things as attending to the making and repairing of streets, the 
keeping of records, the collection of taxes, caring for the poor, protecting 
the people by making arrests, providing a system of water for homes and 
places of work, a system of sewage disposal, etc. 

2. The government of villages. In some states, located within the 
town limits are legal communities called villages (in a few states bor¬ 
oughs correspond to villages). As its name implies, a village is a small 
community (in one state the legislature has specified that a village must 
not exceed one square mile in area and must have a population of at 
least 200). The chief lawmaking bodies of the village are the people them¬ 
selves and the trustees or council whom they elect. There is held each 
year a village meeting, which is much like the town meeting. The voters 
decide such matters as whether or not to buy fire apparatus or to install a 
system of drainage, and other related matters, but leave it to the trustees 
to define fire limits and policemen’s duties, regulate public amusements, 
etc. The executive part of village government consists of the president 
of the trustees, clerk, assessors, and other officials who attend to the 



210 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

special work that the state has permitted the village to take charge of. 
The work varies with the size of the village, but usually includes tak¬ 
ing care of the poor, collecting taxes, superintending the laying and re¬ 
pairing of streets and sidewalks, maintaining a police force and a fire 
department, and guarding the health of the people in various ways. 


r This community consists of a dozen houses, one store, and a sawmill. If this 
were in your state, would the township or the county have most to do with the 
life of these people ? 

3. The government of cities. Cities are not large towns but large 
villages. Unlike villages, however, cities do not remain a part of the 
towns in which they lie. They are separated from them, having definite 
boundaries and definite powers, both of which are specified in a charter. 
Just as the state legislature may at any time pass laws which enlarge the 
constitution, so the legislature may at any time pass laws that enlarge 
the powers given to cities. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 211 


The legislative department of the city is the board of aldermen or 
common council, who are elected by the people. The chief executive is 
the mayor, who either approves or vetoes the ordinances passed by the 
board of aldermen or common council. He is the most conspicuous gov¬ 
ernment official of the city and has great influence. He is often head of 
the police force and in some cities is the presiding official of the board 
of aldermen. The judicial department of the city consists of judges of 
municipal courts. A municipal court can decide only those cases which 
involve ordinances passed by the board of aldermen or common council. 
Many different courts may be located in a single city, but the city itself 
has nothing to do with those concerned with state or national laws. 

4. Special forms of city government . Since 1900 the Galveston 
(Texas) plan of governing a city by a commission and judges elected by 
the people, one of the commissioners being called the mayor-president, 
has been tried in several cities. The mayor presides at the meetings of 
the commission. This commission takes control of the different depart¬ 
ments of the city, one member having charge of health and safety, an¬ 
other of finance and taxes, and so on. In 1907 the Des Moines plan of 
city government was originated, by which the commissioners were ex¬ 
pected to give their whole time to their city work and were paid large 
salaries. If these men do not attend to their business properly, they can 
be recalled by the people. 

Another form of city government is that in which the people elect a 
judiciary and a city council which appoints a salaried city manager to 
run the city affairs as a business man would run his business. The city 
manager appoints as his assistants the heads of the following (or similar) 
departments: public service, public safety, law, finance, and public 
welfare. 

4. Why Communities Differ so Greatly. The larger the 
number of people who live close together and the more kinds 
of work these people are engaged in, the more government de¬ 
partments and officials will be necessary. It would be foolish 
for a small village to have a large force of traffic policemen or 
a public art museum or a night court, or to pass ordinances 
limiting the height of buildings, requiring fire escapes on two- 
story houses, specifying the distance between houses, or naming 
the hour at which dance halls should close, etc. Large cities 
must have ordinances dealing with these and hundreds of other 


212 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



© Detroit Publishing Co. 


This painting by Birge Harrison pictures a city street of churches and apart¬ 
ment houses. What are some of the government departments or officials that 
such streets and homes make necessary? 


matters with which the village is not concerned. Therefore if 
you will remember that communities differ very widely in num¬ 
bers of people and in the life they lead, you will understand that 




THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 213 


communities will not have exactly the same number and kinds 
of government officials. A city that is on a river may differ in 
many respects from a city that is not: there must be bridges, 
and officials to see that these are in good condition, and often 
river police to prevent drownings, enforce laws about motor 
boats, etc. A farming community is very different from a min¬ 
ing town, a farming community in Alabama is very different 
from a farming community in New England,—and so we might 
continue. 

5. First Steps in Studying the Government Side of your 
Community. For the reasons just stated, before you study the 
government of your community you will need to make a survey 
of the community, using an outline based on those given on pages 
137, 138, 141, 142, 146, or some such outline as the following: 

1. Geographical features that influence the life of the people: rivers, 
mountains, forests, farm land, mines, quarries, cyclones, spring floods, 
sand dunes, etc. 

2. Chief occupations. 

3. Location and kind of work buildings. 

4. Location and kind of homes. 

5. Location, number, and kind of hotels, boarding-houses, cafes, 
and restaurants. 

6. Location, number, and kind of stores, garages, etc. 

7 . Location and description of such institutions as banks, schools, 
libraries, dispensaries, hospitals, theaters, and other public and semi¬ 
public buildings. 

8. Condition of streets. Presence or lack of sidewalks, ditches, 
hydrants, electric signs, etc. 

9. Presence of obnoxious weeds, irrigation ditches, windmills, ar¬ 
tesian wells. 

10. Number and kinds of vehicles using the streets and roads. 

11. Character of population (whether containing large numbers of 
foreign-born). 

12. Connection with the outside world—roads (condition), telegraph 
and telephone, wireless, cable (efficiency of the service), railroad, electric 
cars, jitneys, canal, river, lake. 

13. Whether county seat, state capital, railroad junction, summer 
resort, or seat of a college or other large institution, 



214 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

After making this survey, you must determine 

1. In what respects individuals are responsible for what exists. 

2. In what respects private organizations (such as district-nursing 
association, village-improvement society, chamber of commerce, con¬ 
sumers’ league, American Legion, etc.) are responsible for what exists. 

3. In what respects government is responsible. 


Cities have many ordinances dealing with hydrants, street crossings, errand 
boys, loiterers, beggars, street venders, street lights. What does a scene like this 
suggest to you? (Courtesy of the Ovington Brothers) 

When you have made your survey and have separated your 
list into these three parts, you must make still another division 
—separate the list of things for which government is responsible 
into four parts, to indicate what things are due to or accom¬ 
plished or controlled by (1) local government, (2) the county, 
(3) the state, (4) the nation. Such a list will differ in some re¬ 
spects from any list prepared by the pupils in any other com¬ 
munity, for no other community is exactly like yours. 







THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 215 


A treasurer and a collector of taxes are a part of every legal 
community. But further than this there is practically no uni¬ 
formity, for the reasons which we have given above—the needs 
of communities differ and the ideals of the people differ. Most 
communities have local police; fire, school, and health officials; 
a street or road department; and a board or department to at¬ 
tend to the bringing of water into the community and to super¬ 
vise the sewage system. If your community lacks any of these, 
you should discover the reason. Whatever your investigation 
reveals to you, learn the reason for the presence or lack of each 
government department and official. 

6 . The Official Departments of One City. The following is 
an alphabetical list of the departments, boards, and commissions 
in one of our cities: 


Art commissioners 
Assessing department 
Auditing department 
Board of appeal 
Bridge commissioners 
Budget department 
Building department 
Cemetery department 
City clerk department 
City-planning board 
Collecting department 
Constables 

Consumptives’ hospital 
Election department 
Finance commission 
Fire department 
Gauger of liquid measurements 
Health department 
Hospital department 
Inspectors of boilers 
Inspectors of hay and straw 
Inspectors of lime 
Inspectors of petroleum 
Institutions department 
Law department 
Library department 
Licensing board 
Loan-company directors 


Market department 

Mayor’s office 

Measurers of grain 

Measurers of leather 

Measurers of wood and bark 

Medical examiners 

Overseers of the public welfare 

Park and recreation department 

Pilot commissioners 

Police department 

Printing department 

Public-buildings department 

Public-works department 

Registry department 

School committee 

Schoolhouse department 

Sinking-funds department 

Soldiers’ relief department 

Statistics department 

Street department 

Superintendent of hay scales 

Supply department 

Transit department 

Treasury department 

Vessels and ballast department 

Weights and measures department 

Workingmen’s loan association 



216 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

The annual report, or yearbook, will give a complete list of 
these departments and officials, but in cities there is seldom any 
one report that contains a record of all that has been accom¬ 
plished in any one year. Therefore one must add to the printed 
report items taken from the newspapers relative to what is voted 
and what is accomplished. Each civics class should construct 


There are many such scattered communities in the United States. What 
does government do for them? (Courtesy of the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company) 

thus a loose-leaf yearbook, which a committee keeps in order 
but for which each member of the class gathers information. 

7 . Washington, a Special Kind of Community. The most 
celebrated community in the United States is not a part of a 
county and is legally neither a self-governing village, town, nor 
city. This is Washington, one of several communities in the 
District of Columbia, an area of about seventy square miles. 
Because this district is the seat of the national government, 
Congress maintains almost complete control of it. Congress 
makes its laws (setting aside certain days to discuss and vote 
on District matters), and appoints a commission consisting of 
two civilians and one army engineer to execute these laws and 








THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 217 

to make such additional ordinances as are necessary. Congress 
and the taxpayers of the District share the expenses of this 
government. 

8 . Making your Own Textbook of Community Civics. It 

would require a textbook in forty-eight volumes—one for each 
state—to give a complete account of the government of all com¬ 
munities in the United States. School years are too short to study 
such a book; and it would not be worth while, anyway, for, 
as you have already learned, government is not a completed 
thing. A new factory in a small town, a lucky strike in oil in a 
rural community, a fire that destroys most of a small town- 
such an event may change the whole course of a community in a 
few weeks’ time. What changes the community changes the 
government side of the community, for government is made to 
fit rivers, lakes, oil wells, factories, and all events, big and little, 
that concern the welfare of the people. Therefore pupils and 
adults must to a large extent make their own textbook of civil 
government. The different tasks required of the pupils in this 
book will help prepare them to do this, but year after year they 
must continue the task. This consists of three parts: (1) keep¬ 
ing informed regarding the changes that take place in their 
community (people, occupations, etc.), (2) learning how these 
changes will affect the community as a whole, (3) watching the 
way laws and ordinances are changed to keep pace with the 
changes in the community. 

9 . Many People live in Several Communities. The means of 
rapid transportation and communication have brought distant 
places so close together that many people today really live in 
several communities. Many a man actually has his home in 
one town or village and works in another. Sometimes a person’s 
work is in the center of a great city, his home in a suburb, his 
church in another suburb, and his club in a small town. Often 
families spend the summer in the country and the rest of the 
year in town or city, which means that they live in two com¬ 
munities. Many young people leave their home communities 
temporarily to study in others. 


2l8 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



Since a person can have a legal residence in only one com¬ 
munity, it is imperative that he take a keen interest in all that 
goes on in the state and national capitols, for only by means of 
the laws passed there can he have a part in improving the com¬ 
munities in which he has no vote. Thousands of the business 

men and workers in 
our large cities have no 
vote there. They pay 
taxes in the city and 
thus help pay the city’s 
bills, but how the tax 
money is to be spent 
is decided by others. 
But by seeing that the 
right men are sent to 
the state legislature 
and by watching what 
bills are introduced at 
each session, every 
worker in a city can 
have some part in run¬ 
ning its affairs. Then 
there is the unofficial 
way of helping run the 
community. In New 
York City and every 
enterprising commu¬ 
nity there is a board of trade or chamber of commerce or other 
organization made up of men and women whose work brings 
them to the city. These organizations use their influence in 
every possible way to have the right kind of city officials chosen 
and the right kind of ordinances passed. 

10 . The County is sometimes a Community and sometimes a 
Group of Communities. In many cases the town, village, or 
city, to which the community legally belongs, is not so im¬ 
portant in the governmental life of the people as the county. 


© Keystone View Co. 

Many country clubs like this are in the sub¬ 
urbs of towns miles from the cities where their 
members work 




THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 219 

In those states which have many rural and scattered communi¬ 
ties it is the county that really binds them into a legal com¬ 
munity. It is always the county that attends to the state’s court 
work, and it is often the county that attends to schools, libraries, 
forests, roads, ditches, and other matters that affect equally all 
the inhabitants of the county. It seems a little confusing to 



©Allen N. Hoxsie 

A home in a Southern state where the county is an important government unit 


find the county taking part in the community’s local affairs, but 
often the county is really the community, and in other cases it 
merely does for a group of several communities what they could 
not do so well separately. The ordinary small community does 
not need a separate courthouse, a separate jail or poorhouse, but 
every community needs access to these institutions. It is there¬ 
fore convenient to have them provided by the counties. In most 
states it has also been found most convenient to deal with farm¬ 
ing interests and forests by counties. Therefore many states 
have a special agricultural agent and a trained forester in every 







220 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


county in which farms or forests are situated. The county, then, 
in some states is a big scattered community; in others it is only 
a unit of government which performs for the communities a few 
things that they cannot so well do for themselves. 

11. The Government of the County. How many counties the 
state shall contain, what their sizes and names shall be, and 
what powers of government they shall have, all have been de¬ 
cided by the state legislature in laws passed from time to time. 
In states in which the county is important it has a legislative de¬ 
partment consisting of a board of commissioners or supervisors 
of from three to seven members. In some cases one commis¬ 
sioner or supervisor is chosen from each town and, if the county 
contains cities, one from each city ward. This board chooses 
one of its own number chairman and also appoints a clerk. The 
executive department of counties having such a legislative de¬ 
partment consists of the board and such officials as the sheriff, 
superintendent of the poor, superintendent of highways, and 
superintendent of schools. 

In some states the chief service that the county renders the 
people is that of recording wills, deeds, etc., trying criminals, 
and taking charge of jails and reform schools. All counties are 
important as judicial units. The county sheriff arrests violators 
of the state laws; the district attorney acts for the county in 
bringing cases to court and prosecuting offenders; the county 
coroner investigates sudden deaths; county judges preside at 
the county courts, in some cases rendering the decisions, and in 
others instructing the jury as to its duties and the law. The 
county clerk is responsible for recording deeds and mortgages, 
and the judge of the probate court appoints guardians, selects 
administrators of estates, and sees that property left by deceased 
persons is distributed properly. 

12. The Part that Each Person takes in Government. Most 
persons are residents of (i) town, village, borough, city, or some 
other legal community, (2) county or parish, (3) state, (4) na¬ 
tion. They help pay the expenses of these four units of govern¬ 
ment and, if they are registered voters, help run them. You 


THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 221 


have already learned the ways in which a person helps make 
and run the machinery of government, but we summarize them 
here, for most of them are community acts of citizenship : 

1. Registering as a voter—that is, swearing to one’s name, residence, 
occupation, and other details required by law as necessary preliminaries 
to voting. 

2. Attending caucuses and primary elections to select the candidates 
to be voted on. 

3. Voting 

a. Once in four years (leap years) for electors to choose president 
and vice president. 

b. Twice every six years for United States senator. 

c. Once in two years for United States representatives. 

d. Once a year or once in two or three years (the custom differs in 
different states) for governor, lieutenant governor, state treasurer, 
representatives to the state legislature, and other elective officials. 

e. Once a year for county, city, town, village, or borough officials. 

/. In some states at special elections to recall unsatisfactory officials. 

Most state officials hold office for more than a year, but there is never 

a year when the terms of some local or county officials do not expire. 

There are not always separate elections for all these different groups 
of officials. The date of voting for president, United States senators, 
and representatives has been fixed by Congress as "the first Tuesday 
after the first Monday in November of the even-numbered years.” In 
many states state officials are also chosen at this time. Town, city, and 
village elections are usually held in the spring. 

4. Lawmaking by means of the initiative and referendum (see 
page 172) and, in the case of persons living in incorporated villages and 
towns in certain states, helping make local ordinances. 

5. Taxpaying. There is no set date for the paying of all taxes. State 
income taxes must be paid before a certain date. The Federal income 
tax must be paid on or before March 15. State, county, and local taxes 
are paid as one tax on a certain date. Taxes such as automobile regis¬ 
tration fees, franchises, customs duties, are paid at other times. 

6. Serving on jury (if called). There are two kinds of juries— 
(1) grand juries, chosen regularly in each county to listen to the evi¬ 
dence against persons suspected of crime and to decide whether they 
shall be held for trial, and (2) petty, or petit, juries, which hear the 
evidence and decide whether or not, in the case of a crime, the prisoner is 
guilty and, in the case of a civil dispute, which party is in the wrong 


222 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


and in certain cases what damages shall be awarded. The grand jury 
consists of citizens selected in a manner provided by law. The jurors are 
notified by the sheriff when they are needed, and remain in session at the 
courthouse until they have considered all the cases brought before them. 
A petit jury consists of citizens chosen according to law to hear a certain 
case, and is dismissed as soon as a verdict is reached. A grand jury 
may hear evidence about fifty crimes or disputes, while a petit jury hears 
evidence about only one. Many persons are never drawn for jury duty, 
and certain persons, such as doctors and clergymen, are excused by their 
occupation from serving. But every year the fate of thousands of lives 
is determined by citizens serving on juries. 

7. Acting as witness when summoned to court. Almost as important 
as jury duty is that of appearing in court to state the facts in one’s 
possession. A person may be summoned by either the grand jury, the 
prosecuting attorney, or the petit jury, to tell what he knows about a 
certain matter. In every case his duty is to help (so far as it lies in his 
power) to secure justice. 

8. Petitioning president, governor, mayor, or other executive official 
to act to bring about some needed reform. So long as the United States 
retains its democratic form of government, the president, governors, and 
mayors must receive and consider any and every petition which any 
group of citizens make. This right to petition is one used constantly 
by the people. 

9. Informing the proper government officials about damaged lights, 
trees, and public property, notifying the police of suspicious persons, 
informing the board of health as to bad sanitary conditions, etc. 

All these acts except those of serving on juries and appearing 
as witness are performed in one’s own community. The com¬ 
munity is really a miniature nation, for it is composed of some 
of all the parts that go to make up a nation. There is a straight 
line of connection between every voting booth and Washington, 
and an equally straight but much shorter line between the vot¬ 
ing booth and the state capital and county seat. These lines are 
never broken. If a village is full of unsolved problems that 
county, state, or nation could or should solve, the trouble is not 
that the straight lines from each citizen to the seats of power 
have been broken, but that the citizens have failed to put the 
right persons at the other end of the lines. 


THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNITY 223 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Re-read Chapter VI and then read this chapter as a whole before 
giving special attention to any one section. Make an outline of the two 
chapters as if they were one. 

2 . Explain when a community is a legal community (that is, a unit of 
government). Perhaps your community is only half or a third or even a 
fourth of the legal community. If so, find out as much as possible about 
the other communities which help to make up your town or city. 

3 . What is the name of your railroad station, your post office, the place 
in which your family pays taxes ? If these differ, explain the reason. 

4. If you live in an incorporated village, town, or city, explain when 
and why the community became incorporated. Secure a copy of the 
charter, or act of incorporation, to find out just what powers your com¬ 
munity has (a copy of the charter or act of incorporation is probably 
included in one of your town reports or in the municipal register, copies 
of which can be obtained through the town or city clerk’s office). 

5 . What is the name of the body which makes laws (usually called 
ordinances) for your community ? How are its members chosen; when 
and how often do they meet ? 

6. Find out from the official report, or by inquiring of intelligent 
voters, what are some of the ordinances enacted during the past year. 
One town has an ordinance forbidding buildings or halls to be rented to 
motion-picture companies. A large city has an ordinance forbidding 
more than one milkman to stop at the same apartment house (thus re¬ 
quiring all families to buy of the same dealer in order to avoid noise and 
confusion). Many towns and villages have ordinances requiring owners 
of trees to take measures to eradicate the gypsy moth. 

7 . ( a ) Refer to the list of government officials given on page 215 and 
prepare a similar list of officials of your community. Insert these in your 
loose-leaf notebook, and against each official, board, or commission in¬ 
sert the information suggested by the headings near the top of the next 
page. ( b ) Counties have some or all of the following officials : board of 
supervisors (or county commissioners), sheriff, deputy sheriff, clerk, 
court clerks, registrar of deeds, assessors, auditor, treasurer, prosecuting 
attorney, coroner, circuit (or district) judges, superintendent of schools, 
superintendent of highways, superintendent of the poor. Those of your 
county may differ from this list. Secure a copy of the official report 
which contains all these officials, place them in your loose-leaf notebook, 


224 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


and against eaclrwrite in full the information suggested by the following 
headings, (c) From time to time clip from the paper items about these 
officials. 


HOW AND WHEN 
CHOSEN (ELECTED 
OR appointed) 


If appointed, 

Term of ,, 

SALARY 

Duties 

Assistants or 

BY WHOM 

Office 


Subdivisions 


Present Holder 
of Office 


8. Before making the survey called for on page 213 bring together 
the information that you assembled for exercises on pages 20, 21, 154- 
156, 157. When you have woven this together, you may find that there 
is very little information that you still lack in order to determine what 
government does for your community. In any case, make your informa¬ 
tion as complete as possible and arrange it in outline form in your note¬ 
book. 

9. One of the surprises of this survey and classification may be that 
so many things are accomplished by individuals and private organiza¬ 
tions. Be sure to show whether these private organizations are controlled 
or affected in any way by government. 

10. Churches, banks, insurance companies, electric-power companies, 
business firms—all are legal companies which have probably received 
from the state a charter showing for what purpose they exist, how they 
are run, and who is responsible for their management. Hospitals may 
be private institutions, but probably both the state and the community 
have passed laws and ordinances affecting them. Find out the principal 
ways in which government affects these and similar private institutions 
in your community. 

11. It is not necessary to understand the county system of any state 
but your own, but of this you must have a thorough knowledge, for it 
may affect your daily life more than your community does. Learn these 
facts about the county in which you live: (1) Does it have a lawmaking 
body? If so, what is it? (2) What are its chief executive powers? 
(3) Is the county the school district? (4) Has the state assigned a 
forest-fire warden or a county agricultural agent to your county ? If so, 
where are his headquarters ? 










CHAPTER X 


1 COUNTRY IN WHICH THE HUMBLEST MAN IS " MR ” AND 
THE HIGHEST TITLE " GENTLEMAN ” 

1 . The Reverence People once had for Royalty. In Paris in 
the year 1811, one spring morning, although the nation was not 
at war, the booming of cannon was heard. People rushed to win¬ 
dows, balconies, and doors to listen. At regular intervals of sec¬ 
onds the guns shook the city with their roar, and were not silent 
until the salute of a hundred and one had been completed. The 
city seemed to have gone mad for joy, the cheers of the people 
mingling with the sound of the guns. A son had been born to 
the great Emperor Napoleon, and in the Tuileries palace the 
tiny royal child lay in a cradle designed by one of Paris’s great 
artists. " It was inlaid with mother of pearl and golden bees and 
at its head a winged figure of Glory held a crown high above 
the pillow, while a young eagle perched at the foot, with wings 
outspread ready for flight.” Sixty thousand dollars’ worth of 
exquisitely dainty garments had been made for the child. Every¬ 
thing from the royal salute to the wonder cradle was worthy of 
the great emperor’s son. The cheers that started in Paris at 
nine o’clock in the morning by noon were spreading over the 
whole vast empire of France, for signals had been flashed from 
fort to fort and from village to village. 

Twenty years later, in a big, dingy chamber of a palace in 
Vienna, a young man lay dying, alone except for a faithful valet. 
A physician was hastily summoned, but the boy’s spirit was 
leaving the body. Hardly had death claimed him when a crowd 
of curious palace attendants pushed into the great chamber to 
seize whatever could be carried away as souvenirs of the death 
chamber of the exile who had once been an emperor’s son. So 
heartless were these throngs of people—who were not, after all, 

225 


226 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


different from the thousands who twenty years before had 
shouted themselves hoarse at the news of his birth—that they 
cut off his yellow curls "until his head was shorn of most of 
its hair.” 

The newborn infant over whom Paris went mad with joy, 
and the slender, sickly youth who was an exile from his native 
land, deserved neither the honor of the salute of guns nor the 
lonely deathbed with its long train of curiosity seekers. The 
crowds of people who make up the nations today are often as 
unreasoning as the people of the France of a hundred years ago, 
but they do not salute the children of presidents and rulers with 
guns. They wait until the children become men and women and 
then judge them by their accomplishments. If Vienna had real¬ 
ized that although Napoleon had indeed died in exile and his 
son no longer had a claim to the throne of the great French 
empire, nevertheless the boy was a brave, high-spirited youth 
who deserved their admiration, there would have been no dese¬ 
cration of the death chamber. 

2 . One cannot be born into the World either Noble or Great. 

It has taken a long, tortuous series of centuries for people to 
learn that one cannot be born into the world either noble or 
great. Every child is a possible king today, but he does not 
become a king until he has earned his position in the world. 
In America, perhaps more than in any other country, it is de¬ 
manded of every person that he prove himself before he receive 
honor or distinction of any kind. About fifty years ago an 
American wrote to a young man in whom he was greatly inter¬ 
ested a series of letters which he called "Letters to a King.” 
In these he tried to make the boy understand that if he turned 
to his studies and his life work in the right spirit he could indeed 
become a "king.” In one letter he repeated the story of Nicho¬ 
las, Czar of Russia, and the young American engineer who had 
planned and supervised the building of the first section of rail¬ 
road laid in Russia. Upon the railroad’s completion the Czar, 
accompanied by cabinet ministers, generals, and officers of his 
bodyguard, made a tour of inspection over the new road. The 



THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 227 

American engineer was also in the party and became so inter¬ 
ested in pointing out to the emperor the possibilities of develop¬ 
ment in the territory through which the railroad ran that he 
spread his map before the monarch and sat down beside him. 


© Peter A. Juley 

Lincoln was one of the world’s great men, yet he was plain "Mr” (From the 
painting by Douglas Volk) 

The nobles, generals, and officers of the bodyguard, standing 
stiffly as royal etiquette required, were furious that anyone 
should dare sit in the presence of an emperor. After a while the 
emperor overheard their angry mutterings, and said: "You are 
wrong, gentlemen. This man is a king. ... He may be the 
ruler of his people tomorrow.” 




228 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3 . Americans who accomplish Difficult Things are Kings. 

The American was a king not so much because of the fact that 
as a citizen of the United States he might some day become 
president of the United States, but because he had accomplished 
a difficult task successfully. Today the question that an Amer¬ 
ican asks about a stranger is: "What has he done? What is 
he doing?” 

4 . The Only Titles in America. America is a country in 
which "the humblest man is called ' Mr.’ and the highest title 
is that of' gentleman.’ ” Every American has an opportunity to 
become a king, not in name but in reality, for a king is only 
one who because of knowledge and courage leads the way. And 
America is a land of opportunity not only to work, but to lead. 
It is no exaggeration to say that every intelligent person in the 
United States today, whether rich or poor, can, at some time 
during his life, have an opportunity to lead. During Polk’s 
campaign an Englishman traveling in the United States com¬ 
mented on the fact that everywhere he went in the United 
States, 

... in every public meeting there is always some man 
of the laboring class called to the platform. ... A few 
months before Mr. Polk’s election the Whigs carried all 
over the country two workmen—a Kentucky shoemaker 
and an Ohio blacksmith. . . . The people crowded to 
hear them wherever they spoke. 

Today it seems strange to us not that laboring men were popu¬ 
lar speakers but that the Englishman should have thought 
it strange enough to deserve mention. In America leaders come 
from every occupation. 

5 . The Many Opportunities for Leadership. The moment 
two or more persons come together to work or to play, or for 
any purpose whatsoever, someone is leader and the others fol¬ 
lowers. In fact, there is no kind of work which does not have 
its leaders and its followers. It is only the persons who live 
alone and work alone who seem neither to lead nor to follow. 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 



229 

Persons who lead, however, are often so simple and unassum¬ 
ing that those about them do not realize who are leading and 
who are following. In a small town in Ohio one of the members 
of the community club boasted that the club had no leaders, but 
on being questioned he admitted that when troublesome ques¬ 
tions arose these were always referred to a Mr. X, who was de¬ 
scribed as "the man who shows us how.” This was only another 


The Boy Scout leaders of Berkeley, California, to whom the city government 
was turned over for one day 

way of saying that Mr. X was the leader of the club, for "show¬ 
ing how” is "leading the way.” 

6 . There are Leaders Everywhere. Among the pupils of the 
school there are leaders—leaders in recreation and athletics, 
leaders in debating and scholarship. Unfortunately it is also 
the same with the mischief-making and lawbreaking. Settle¬ 
ment workers and juvenile-court officers long ago learned that 
in all stone-throwing, fruit-stealing, and other petty offenses 
committed by boys there is always a gang and a leader. At 
one time in New York City the street fighting between two 
street gangs brought the boys into the juvenile court. The 



230 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


judge asked one of the largest and also one of the smallest boys 
how many others he could get to stop fighting. The large boy 
said "two or three,” the smaller boy "thirty or forty.” And to 
the surprise of the judge the small boy made good, because it 
was he who had been the real leader of all the boys in his block. 
Usually one pupil leads in one thing, and another in another. 
A principal who made a study of the boys in his town found 
that a certain boy was leader when the football season was on, 
another at the baseball season, still another during the winter 
"boxing” season, and when the vacation season arrived several 
different leaders appeared. In other words, a boy led in the 
things in which he had greater knowledge and enthusiasm. 

7 . Some of the Ways in which Young People Lead. One of 
the most valuable parts of a young person’s training is practice 
in leading. That boy who has not led either in home or in 
school, in play or in some kind of activity, has not yet mastered 
any one thing. He has been skimming both his work and his 
pleasures. There have been many youthful leaders like the 
fifteen-year-old boy whom the famous "Uncle Remus” counted 
among his choicest friends. 

. . . there was not a bird in the woods nor a tree that he 
did not know the name of, and something of its peculiari¬ 
ties, and he was familiar with every bypath in the country 
around. He knew where the wild strawberries grew, and 
the chincapins and chestnuts, and where the muscadines 
or "bullaces” were ripest. ... It was he who initiated 
Joel into the mysteries of the coon hunt, with the help of 
the dogs, Jolly and Loud. 

But youthful leaders are not merely those who show the way 
in such things as sports, recreation, and lawbreaking, but those 
who lead in helpfulness. Somebody had failed to be the right 
kind of leader in one of our big city high schools recently, for 
when a Mrs. X was arrested and fined for exposing food for 
sale without having it protected from flies and dust, her fifteen- 
year-old son wrote this letter to the judge who sentenced her: 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 


231 


Dear Judge A: 

Before I begin my tale I want to tell you who I am, so 
that you will understand me better. I am the son of a 

woman named -, whom you sentenced, on Monday, 

October 29, to one day in the Tombs for trying to make an 
honest living nowadays, and help support five children, the 
oldest of which am I, 15 years of age, who quit high school 
last year, in fourth term, in order to go to work and sup¬ 
port myself. . . . Ah! if I were only old enough to come 
near you people, you who live in luxury, in beautiful castles 
built by us, I would make you look like two cents in an 
ash can, but I am too young, and also have too much worry 
of my future. I have too much to struggle for. . . . 

If you wish to die a peaceful death, don’t commit such a 
crime again; don’t forget there is a God in heaven. Give 
the poor a chance, a living chance; let them live while they 
do, and I can assure you of a high appreciation and a clean 
country and Government Respectively. Take this advice 
from a youngster who did a great deal of suffering. 

From a Heartbroken Mother’s Son Whose Name is 

Harry 

Long life, Liberty 
and Freedom 1 

This fire-eating letter showed that "Harry” had had the wrong 
leaders—boys and men who told him lies about the judges of 
the courts and about the government. The judge was not 
wealthy and did not live in a castle. The boy did not under¬ 
stand that most of America’s greatest men had had to struggle 
just as he was struggling. He did not know that the law which 
his mother broke was to protect boys like himself, and all 
others, against diseases which are spread by means of dust and 
flies. Not until the boy was turned over to the juvenile-court 
was this explained to him. It was not too late then to make 
him into a loyal fifteen-year-old citizen, but what the judge had 
to do ought to have been done by his fellow students in school. 

1 Reprinted from Franklin Chase Hoyt’s "Quicksands of Youth,” by per¬ 
mission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 



232 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


8 . A Leader is always prepared to show the Way. There is 

no such thing as a crisis coming in a nation, state, town, or 
business and an unprepared person saving the day. The person 
to whom the opportunity comes will fail conspicuously unless 
for many years—probably all the preceding years.of his life— 
he has made diligent use of every opportunity to do the hard 
things. Foch was a successful general from the moment he was 
given supreme charge of the allied armies in France. There 
were no failures written against his name. But every year of 
Foch’s life, from the day that his schooldays had begun, was a 
steady preparation. He had never fought in a real war, but he 
had been first a student, then a teacher, and finally the head of 
the French War College, where he had worked out every kind of 
battlefield maneuver. It was a thoroughly prepared and confi¬ 
dent Foch, therefore, who said: "My center is giving way, my 
right is falling back, the situation is excellent. I shall attack.” 
An ill-prepared general would have said, " I must retreat.” 

9 . The Preparation Some of our Leaders have had. All our 
leaders—whether presidents, cabinet officers, governors, may¬ 
ors, business builders, home leaders—have reached the place 
of leader in the same way that the French general Foch did, by 
long training. In Washington’s army at one time were three 
efficient junior officers who later became world-famous leaders: 
James Monroe, a future president of the United States, John 
Marshall, a future chief justice of the Supreme Court, and 
Alexander Hamilton, a future secretary of the treasury. They 
did not become famous generals, and probably most persons 
have never heard of their military careers, yet their experience 
as junior officers was only one of the lessons in the hard training 
school of life for these men destined to be leaders, but it was a 
valuable lesson. 

It will be time well spent to select from the men and women 
leaders of today or of yesterday a few in whom you are specially 
interested, and study their early lives to see their step-by-step 
progress. Herbert Hoover, a cabinet officer under President 
Harding, had this kind of training for leadership: 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 


233 

Prepared for college by studying evenings while working for a land 
company. 

At college earned his board and lodging and money for books, tui¬ 
tion, etc. 

Became a day laborer in a mining region of the Sierras to get practi¬ 
cal knowledge of mining. 

Secured a position with the foremost mining engineer in California. 

On recommendation of his employer was sent by a London mining- 
engineering company to West Australia to take charge of reconstructing 
a mine. 

Went to China to become chief engineer of the "Chinese Imperial 
Bureau of Mines.” 

Became manager of a coal mine in China. 

Joined a firm of mining engineers in London. 

Developed a new zinc business in Australia. 

Constructed railways, ships, and smelters in Burma. 

Reclaimed a vast estate in Russia. 

Went to Europe to secure participation of European governments 
in the Panama Pacific Exposition. 

Overtaken by the war, "took charge of the organization for the tem¬ 
porary housing and financing of Americans stranded in Europe.” 

Became chairman of the Belgian relief work. 

Became United States Food Administrator after this country en¬ 
tered the war. 

Created an organization to feed the starving children of Europe. 

Inaugurated a system of American Relief warehouses to aid in sending 
food to Europe. 

Became vice chairman of the second industrial conference in Wash¬ 
ington. 

Became Secretary of Commerce in the cabinet of President Harding. 

Frank A. Vanderlip, one of the successful financiers of the 
United States, had this preparation for his most useful work- 
helping to make order out of the financial wreck of the world 
in 1918: 

Worked on a farm as a boy, then in a machine shop. 

Graduated from college. 

Did newspaper work in Chicago, choosing the financial side of news. 

Became private secretary to Secretary of the Treasury Gage. 

Became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. 


234 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Visited Europe to study financial and industrial conditions. 

Became vice president of the National City Bank of New York. 

Wrote a book on "The American Commercial Invasion of Europe.” 

Became president of the National City Bank. 

Resigned his bank position to study after-war conditions in Europe. 

Jacob A. Riis, one of our most successful leaders in tenement- 
house and school reform, had the kind of preparation that 
showed him the dark side of life as well as the bright side: 

Came to America as a young man. 

Worked as carpenter, coal miner, farm laborer, cabinetmaker, trav¬ 
eling salesman, newspaper reporter. 

As reporteronthe New York Tribune handled police-headquarters news. 

Later became police reporter on the New York Sun. 

Aided in securing adequate school facilities for schoolless children. 

Helped in movement to introduce parks and playgrounds. 

Became executive officer of Good Government Club. 

Became secretary of Small Parks Commission of New York City. 

10 . Sturdy Character necessary for Leaders. A person may 
have the special knowledge and ability that fit him to be presi¬ 
dent or to lead in a special way, but not have the character 
that will make him a true leader. For instance, a man may 
have a complete and detailed knowledge of the banking busi¬ 
ness and still not be honorable enough to be trusted with a 
position of great responsibility. A young man may be a football 
expert and yet be too quick-tempered to become a successful 
captain or coach. So in addition to the mastery of a sub¬ 
ject a leader must secure mastery of the qualities that make 
for fineness. 

To understand why some men have been leaders and others 
have not we must know something of their character as well 
as of their accomplishments. It is just as important to know 
that Washington through all the six years of the Revolution 
gave himself to the country without pay, not taking a cent 
above the exact amount of actual expenses in the field, and that 
these years of neglect of his farm at Mount Vernon lost him 
perhaps $50,000, as it is to know that he successfully put down 



THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 235 

the ''whisky rebellion.” It will also help us to understand the 
greatness of Washington to know that although he had no 
children of his own, he always supported a large family, for he 
adopted or brought up nine children belonging to his own and 
his wife’s relatives, and at General Greene’s death offered to 
educate his fatherless son. For many years Jefferson also 


© E. L .Crandall 

Jefferson’s home—"the noblest house in Virginia.” Our statesmen have been 
leaders in home-making as well as nation-making 

supported the large family of his mother, and after a time 
bought a mountain, on whose summit he built "the noblest 
house in Virginia” from plans of his own drawing, with bricks 
of his own making, with wood of his own cutting. The picture 
of Grant working patiently and unceasingly on his "Memoirs” 
long after the shadow of death had enveloped him, in order to 
pay the huge debts which a business failure had incurred, is 
only one more of the many instances of the kind of personal 
honor which characterized our presidential leaders. 

11 . The Loneliness of Leadership. Only the persons who 
have courage to be misunderstood can be leaders of large 
groups of people. Every leader that we have had has been so 






COMMUNITY CIVICS 


236 

misunderstood at times that the whole world seemed against 
him. Yet the greater the leader, the less did he heed the bitter¬ 
ness and hate of his 
followers. It will help 
us better to be leaders 
in our own little cor¬ 
ner and to be slow to 
speak ill of our present 
leaders, whoever they 
happen to be, to re¬ 
member that Wash¬ 
ington’s own vice 
president called him 
"an old muttonhead” 
who had not been found 
out simply "because he 
kept his mouth shut.” 
It is almost with dis¬ 
may that we learn that 
at one time "ten thou¬ 
sand persons in the 
streets of Philadelphia 
threatened to draw 
Washington out of his 
house” because he had 
refused to take the 
side of revolutionary 
France ' and kept a 
strict neutrality. It was only a fourteen-year-old poet that 
wrote thus of President Jefferson: 

And thou, the scorn of every patriot’s name! 

Thy country’s ruin and her council’s shame! 

Poor servile thing! Derision of the brave! . . . 

Go, wretch, resign the presidential chair . . . 

Go, search with curious eye for horned frogs, 

Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs. 



© George Washington Ins. Co. 


Washington knew the loneliness of leadership, 
yet he never faltered. (From a painting by 
Wilford S. Conrow) 




THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 


237 


But the boy would not have written so bitterly if he had not 
many times heard the men and women about him speak with 
equal bitterness. If the complete story of the lives of all the 
world’s great leaders could be written, we should be astonished 
at the small amount of appreciation and the great amount of 
unfair criticism given them while they lived. Yet these men 
went their way, faithful to their trust. 

12. Qualifications of Naval Leaders. The Americans who 
have been true leaders had most of the qualifications which the 
commander of one of our battleships said were necessary for 
successful leadership in the navy. He speaks as an authority, 
for he himself was a successful leader. 

The following are a few of the points which no officer 
can neglect. Ceaseless study and constant effort are none 
too much. For in the final analysis he who has mas¬ 
tered the art of leadership has mastered everything, since 
through this art all other arts are subject to him! 

Ability. Be able to do everything that you require others to 
do, and do it better, no matter how small the detail or humble 
the task. 

Loyalty. There is loyalty ’'down” as well as loyalty "up,” and 
one cannot exist without the other. As you feel toward those whom 
you try to lead, so will they feel toward you. Give, and unto you 
it shall be given. 

Tact. It is the lubricating oil of human relationships. The man 
who considers tact unnecessary in dealing with subordinates is prob¬ 
ably the same man who hammers his sextant with a monkey wrench 
to make it work. 

Justice. It is not enough to think yourself that you are just and 
fair; make those under you think so too. ‘ You do not demean your¬ 
self by explaining the why and wherefore of an order or decision. 

A sense of injustice will kill spirit and morale quicker than any other 
agency. 

Courage. Take heed that never by the slightest accident or error 
do others get the idea that there is any danger you would not undergo 
or hardship you would not share with them. 

Truth. Tell what you can, when you can. Neither conceal nor 
exaggerate nor minimize. Keep your word, whether it be to give a 
promotion or a court-martial. Better never to make a promise than 
ever to break one. 


238 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Firmness and consistency. Be firm as a rock when right, but never 
obstinate. If wrong, admit it, and you will gain rather than lose in 
prestige. Finish what you start. Never give up. Never blow hot 
and cold according to circumstances, but invariably live up to the 
same principles. 

13. Never Enough Leaders* There are never enough compe¬ 
tent leaders to show the way in all the different parts of living. 
The president of one of our universities, when addressing a 
graduating class, said: 

If out of this group that I see in front of me here there 
are only twenty men that become first-class men, men 
gifted with imagination, men gifted with a real sense of 
responsibility, men who have the instinct of mastery and 
leadership, you will richly repay the establishment of this 
school. 

We have just mentioned some of the necessary qualifications 
for a leader. Often it is not so much the lack of these qualities 
that keeps a person from becoming a leader as it is a fear of 
taking responsibility. A leader goes ahead, and no matter how 
closely he is followed he is still more or less alone—someone 
is sure to misunderstand him or to be jealous of his success. 
It has not been presidents alone who have been bitterly assailed 
by even their friends. At the time that the treaty with Great 
Britain was being discussed in this country, Jay, who sponsored 
it, was repeatedly burned in effigy. Hamilton was stoned when 
he attempted to deliver an address in defense of it, and with 
blood streaming from his face had to' be driven hastily away 
from the wrath of the people of his own city. If every young 
person understood in advance that misunderstandings are inevi¬ 
table, he would make sure that he was so thoroughly a master of 
the thing or cause in which he hoped to lead that from this sense 
of power alone he would get enough pleasure and satisfaction to 
make up for the misunderstandings. 

14. Those trained for Leaders make Good Followers. The 
greatest general, admiral, president, governor, cannot be a suc¬ 
cessful leader unless there are "good followers.” There is a 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 


239 


saying of Confucius that he who leads an uneducated people to 
war throws them away. It is only when the privates in an army 
are possible officers that a general can plan a campaign with 
confidence. To become a good follower, therefore, a person 
needs the same kind of training that he needs to become a good 



© Keystone View Co. 


Out of every graduating class there will be several leaders, who, because of 
courage, eagerness, and years of faithful work, can show the way 


leader. That is why in the United States we try to give the 
same opportunities for gaining strong bodies and well-trained 
minds to all young people. 

It was because all our young men had been trained for 
leaders, and because they understood so well what they were 
fighting for,- that an Englishman in France who watched the 
American soldiers who came to defeat the Germans could say: 

In whatever uniform those men had been marching, we 
would have known them as Americans. Looking down a 
marching column, we saw that it was something in the set 
of the eyes, in the character of the cheekbones, and in the 










240 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


facial expression that made them distinctive. They had a 
look of independence and self-reliance, and it was as visible 
as the sun that these were men with a sort of national pride 
and personal pride, conscious that behind them was a civili¬ 
zation and a power which would give them victory al¬ 
though they in the vanguard might die. 

Go through any workshop, business office, or town, and you 
will find that those who best understand the workshop, the 
business office, or the town are the ones who make the best 
followers. 

Many an honest but ill-prepared leader has succeeded merely 
because of the intelligence and help of those whom he tried to 
lead. Only one man can be mayor, but all the men of a city can 
know as much about the needs of the city as the mayor. Only 
one person can be president of his class, but every student can 
be so intelligently interested in all that concerns his class that 
he will be ready with help. It is a sign of strength to lead, but 
it is also a sign of strength to follow an able leader. It may 
happen that a person never has an opportunity to lead in the 
particular thing in which he most wishes to, simply because 
another person is even better fitted than he. If, however, he 
has in him the spirit of the true leader, then he will do valiant 
service as a follower. 

15. Those who do not Follow are Driven. We know that if 
there are large numbers of people who cannot intelligently fol¬ 
low a true leader, then they will surely fall into the hands of 
"drivers.” For it is the same with people as with animals— 
those who cannot be led are always driven. Drivers are men 
and women who appeal to the ignorance or fear or hate in men’s 
hearts. When a mob kills and destroys, it is being driven, not 
led. The speaker who calls the people in his audience "wage 
slaves” and taunts them with being afraid of their employers, 
too fearful to overthrow their government, is not leading them, 
he is driving them to deeds of violence. Some employers used 
to believe that the best way to get work out of employees was 
by means of harsh rules. This method was the driving method. 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 241 

Today all wise employers know that they must lead work out 
of the workers. The same mistake has also been made by 
workers. Workers have in the past often tried by meg.ns of 
threats and poor work to drive their employers to raise w^ges 
and to shorten hours, instead of proving by doing their work 
better that they deserved the higher wages and shorter hours. 



© Underwood & Underwood 


Whenever a great crowd becomes a mob, the people are being driven, not led 


16. Only the Weak or Ignorant are Driven. Those who are 
driven are always ignorant or weak, perhaps both. The boy who 
does a mean act because another taunts him with "not daring 
to” is not being led into evil, he is being driven because he is 
weak. It is the same, of course, if he refrains from doing a 
thing merely because he is afraid he will be found out. There 
are many such weak persons in every community. That is why 
there are drivers everywhere. It is important that during their 
schooldays all young people learn how to lead and how to fol¬ 
low, so that they will not become either drivers or the driven. 



242 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


17. Leaders who Fail. The world has only contempt for the 
man who-dails those who look to him for leadership. Among 
the lisK>f survivors of the steamship Titanic, which was sunk in 
mid'Ocean by an iceberg, was the name of one of the directors 
pi the company which owned the vessel. Hundreds of men, 
women, and children had drowned, and all the information 
obtained by wireless had shown that there had not been enough 
places in the lifeboats for all the passengers. When the sur¬ 
vivors were finally landed in New York, a newspaper editor 
sent a reporter to interview this director, with these instruc¬ 
tions : "Ask him how he happened to be saved when Astor, Butt, 
Straus, Guggenheim, went down.” In this one sentence was 
packed all the scorn that human beings feel for the leader who 
fails to lead. 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1. Read rapidly all this chapter and the following one, then make an 
outline that will cover the two as a whole. Keep this outline in mind in 
reading and discussing the chapters by sections. 

2. Turn to the Federal Constitution and find the statement which 
refers to titles of nobility. Discuss the effect this has probably had on 
making the United States a democratic nation. Read your state consti¬ 
tution to see if it has a similar statement. 

3. What are some of the titles besides "Mr.” that are sometimes used 
in speaking to or of a person ? What is the purpose of these and the 
effect of their use? 

4. The next time you are on the street or in a gathering where there 
are large numbers of people look for the faces in which there is power. 
Be able to tell what evidences of "being a king” certain persons showed. 

5. Explain the connection between the fact that we offer the same kind 
of school training to all young people and the fact that every American 
at some time in his life may have an opportunity to lead. 

6 . Take several issues of your local newspaper, make a list of every 
local event, such as a ball game, a special lodge meeting, a church supper, 
a business session of the library trustees, the board of trade’s monthly 
"smoker.” If the news is meager supplement this by adding items about 
events that have taken place in the past. Each of these events required 


THE HIGHEST TITLE IN AMERICA 


243 

leaders. Who were these leaders, and in what way did they lead? In 
what ways were each of these dependent on capable followers ? 

7. Explain why much preparation is needed for leadership and 
draw on historical characters for illustrations. Get at least one illus¬ 
tration from European history: Napoleon, Gambetta, Dante, Gladstone ; 
or some other character. 

8 . Select the leader of the past or present whom you most admire, 
and learn every fact obtainable about his early life and the step-by- 
step approach to his useful work. 

9. What is the difference between character and reputation? Show 
that both are helpful to a leader but that only one is necessary. 

10. Who are several of the leaders your state has had who must have 
learned something about the "loneliness of leadership”? Learn all that 
you can about one of these. Discuss the phrase " the greater the leader, 
the greater the loneliness.” 

11. Discuss the qualifications for naval leaders given on page 237 . 
Are these the same qualifications that every kind of leader should have ? 
Be prepared to discuss this point by point. To the leaders that you 
selected from your special study in exercises 8 and 10 , apply the test of 
this outline. 

12. Why does college training help young people to get a better prep¬ 
aration for leading than high school alone can give ? 

13. From recent history give instances of "drivers.” Discuss the 
difference between drivers and leaders. 

14. Make out a list of the qualifications for good followers similar 
to the list of leadership qualifications given on page 237 . 

15. Assume that there has been a disastrous fire in one section of 
your community which destroyed the homes and the school buildings 
of many pupils. Let the class choose a leader and make plans for deal¬ 
ing with the emergency. 

16. Organize the class into a chamber of commerce or similar or¬ 
ganization and let this "come to the assistance” of the homeless section. 
For the purposes of the civics work it would be well if this organization 
could be maintained until this text is completed. At this time let the 
pupils as members of the chamber discuss some local emergency (either 
actual or imaginary) and form plans for meeting this. The real leader 
will be the one with the best idea and the best plan for working out 
the idea. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 

1. Judging a Nation by its Leaders. To understand any 
nation one must know about its leaders, what kind of men they 
are and what they try to accomplish. Therefore to know our 
own United States we must learn about our government leaders 
and leaders in work, education, and helpfulness. Our govern¬ 
ment leaders are those directly or indirectly selected by the 
people. These are not more important than many of the un¬ 
official leaders, but they have been deliberately chosen by the 
people and therefore show what kind of leaders the people want. 

2. The Presidents our Most Conspicuous Leaders. Conspicu¬ 
ous among the nation’s leaders are the president and his secre¬ 
taries, the cabinet. The presidents are common men, men of 
the people, who for a few years drop the work by which they 
earn their living to do the hardest work of their lives in the 
modest White House in Washington. In comparison with the 
other nations of the world no country has had so matchless a 
succession of presidential leaders as has the United States, 
when measured by both ability and character. Some presidents 
have been dreary mediocrities; some of them have been only 
commonplace. A few of them have had frightful tempers. But 
Americans boast that they have never had a bad president, 
never a president who has intentionally betrayed his trust. 
Never has the United States had a president like Napoleon III 
of France, whom our minister described as " short and stocky, 
he moves with a queer, sidelong gait, like a gouty crab—a man 
so wooden looking that you would expect his voice to come 
rasping out like a watchman’s rattle. . . . Eyes sleepily 
watchful . . . like servants looking out of dirty windows and 
saying, 'Nobody at home,’ and lying as they say it.” 

244 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 245 

There is no magic in the word "president,” however. In the 
World Almanac is a page of "Rulers of the World, 5 ’ in which 
"president” occurs thirty-three times, and other titles only 
twenty-one times. Until the United States made its constitu¬ 
tion no nation had a president. But the shrinking list of kings 
and emperors and the growing list of presidents does not mean 
that all kings are holding their nations back and all presidents 
leading their nations forward. A president may be an incom¬ 
petent person, even an ignorant one, incapable of real leader¬ 
ship or efficiency. Of the twenty-four presidents who held office 
in Haiti from the beginning of the republic to 1903 , many were 
accused of cannibalism, and few of them could read or write. 
Such presidents were incapable of preventing rioting and 
bloodshed. 

As we have said in an earlier chapter, a government is really 
a set of laws expressing the wishes of the people and a group of 
men chosen to carry out these wishes. The president is merely 
one of the people who carry out the wishes of the people. What 
Washington or Lincoln or Roosevelt did as president was only 
what thousands of the plain people wanted done and would 
themselves have tried to do if they had been president. The 
same is true of the Haitian presidents. It was not only the 
presidents who were ignorant and inefficient, it was thousands 
of the Haitian people also. As late as 1915 it was estimated 
that less than 3 per cent of the Haitians could read and write. 
The secret of the American presidents lies in the common 
people. The president represents their hopes and aspirations. 
If they expect him to be upright, self-sacrificing, leading the 
way to a better nation, he will try with all the strength that in 
him lies to be such a leader. 

3. Some of the Problems confronting the President. Every 
person would be a better American if in imagination he could 
become president of the United States for a day. It is almost 
staggering to imagine waking each morning to feel that you are 
custodian of forty-eight states and of the welfare of more than 
105 , 000,000 people. The president must have a more complete 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


246 

knowledge of geography, history, and current events than can 
be gained/fn any college course. He must know not only the 
United States of five years ago but enough about the Idaho of 
today to meet the governor of that state and talk helpfully 
about the problems that confront him, enough of California to 
meet a delegation of its business men and discuss with them the 
Japanese-immigration problem. 

4 . The President’s Day. To be sure the president has a large 
number of helpers whose work it is to gather and keep such 
information ready for instant use. The greatest storehouse of 
information in the United States is in Washington. But the 
president must have a first-hand general knowledge of all the 
matters that are vital to the welfare of the people, else he cannot 
rightly lead the nation. The demands made on him for leader¬ 
ship are never-ending. Here is a page from the diary of Presi¬ 
dent Taft, showing what a typical White House day was at 
that time. The numbers in parenthesis refer to the list of powers 
and duties of the president as given on page 249. With the 
exception of those callers who came merely to pay their re¬ 
spects, it can be assumed that each person or delegation looked 
to the president for leadership in something. 


6:45 A.M. Rises. 35 to 40 minutes of exercise in the White House gym¬ 
nasium. 

9:30 to 10:00. Mail. 

10:00 to 1:3o. Representative Moon and about 30 boys from Girard College- 
respects. 

[This delegation of boys had called on the President not because he was an 
executive but because he was the nation’s leader.] 

Representative Butler and committee of three of Society of 
Friends—to present memorial. 

[The Society of Friends had sent this committee to the President with a petition 
calling on the President as leader to use his influence to accomplish a certain thing.] 

T. J. Dolan, P. J. Morrissey, and committee of railroad train¬ 
men. (8) (9) (10) 

[The committee of railroad trainmen may have come to consult the President 
because of any one of his powers represented by (8) (9) (10), in all of which it 
would be Taft the leader that was sought.] 



© International Newsreel 

One of the nation’s most popular leaders—Theodore Roosevelt. He led on the 
battlefield, on the ranch, as police official, as governor, and as president 





248 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Secretary of State Knox. (2) (3) (4) 

Secretary of War Dickinson. (1) 

Attorney-General Wickersham. (5) (10) 

Secretary of Commerce and Labor Nagel. (8) (10) 

Postmaster-General Whipple. (3) (10) 

{The business of these five secretaries must have been concerned with important 
official matters, for busy secretaries do not consult a busy president in the busiest 
part of his day on matters that are not pressing. Since we were at peace during 
Taft’s administration, Secretary Dickinson’s errand was doubtless concerning some 
purely executive matter; perhaps he wished to get the President’s approval of the 
number of troops to be stationed in the Philippines. The Attorney-General perhaps 
had been summoned by the President to request him to investigate Charles Morse’s 
plea for pardon—an executive act on the President’s part. The interview of the 
Postmaster-General may have had to do with such a routine matter as the appoint¬ 
ment of a postmaster for Dallas, Texas, or such a specially important matter as the 
establishment of postal savings banks, in which Taft took the lead.] 

Joseph E. Wing of Tariff Board. (10) 

Mr. McDougald, Canadian Commissioner of Customs, and 
Mr. Russell. (2) 

[Both Mr. Wing and Mr. McDougald had come to consult the President about 
the tariff revision, for which purpose Taft as leader had convened a special session 
of Congress.] 

Mr.ElliottNorthcott,newlyappointedministertoNicaragua. (3) 

[Mr. Northcott, in going to a South American country which was so filled with 
revolutions, distrust, and uncertainty as Nicaragua, would receive from the Presi¬ 
dent not only the routine directions which are given each departing ambassador 
but special instructions, which would be the advice of the leader Taft and not 
merely the executive Taft.] 

Col. George S. Anderson—respects. 

Bishop W. J. Gaines—respects. 

[Here again it is the leader Taft that is called upon.] 

n Nineteen senators. (8) 

Forty-seven representatives. (8) 

[The delegations of senators and representatives were there to consult with the 
one person whose power to control legislation was all-important.] 

1:30. Lunch. 

2:30 to 3:30. Mail and signing. 

3:30 to 5:00. Exercise. 

5:00 to 7:30. Secretary of Interior Ballinger, Commissioner Valentine, Mr. 

S.E.Nicholson — conference on Minnesota Indian Treaties. (10) 

[This interview may have had to do only with routine details of treaty-making, 
but it is more probable that it was Taft as leader that discussed and made plans 
affecting the future welfare of a large group, of Indians.] 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 


249 


5. The President as both Executive and Leader. The presi¬ 
dent is both an executive and a leader. As an executive he per¬ 
forms the routine tasks required by the Constitution and by the 
laws passed by Congress. As a leader he does the things for 
which power has been given him by the Constitution and laws 
passed by Congress, but which have not been specified. All the 
powers and duties of the president are included under these 
heads: 

1. Is the head of the army and navy. 

2. Makes treaties (usually through the Secretary of State) with the 
advice and consent of the Senate. 

3. Appoints ambassadors, consuls, judges of Supreme Court, and 
about eleven thousand other government officials with the advice and 
consent of the Senate. 

4. Receives or rejects foreign ambassadors and consuls. 

5. Grants reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United 
States. 

6. Convenes both Houses of Congress on special occasions. 

7. Sends messages to Congress at the opening of each session. 

8. Recommends legislation to Congress. 

9. Approves or vetoes bills. 

10. Takes measures to see that laws are faithfully carried out. 

The president is an executive when, after Congress has de¬ 
clared war, he proceeds to summon troops and make the other 
necessary preparations. He is an executive when he prepares his 
annual message to Congress. He is an executive when he ap¬ 
points the members of a special board, like the Federal Water 
Power Commission (created by act of Congress) to find ways 
of making some of our streams useful as sources of power. 
But even in the performance of routine tasks the right kind of 
president is leader as well as executive. At the famous Con¬ 
ference for the Limitation of Armaments, when President Hard¬ 
ing told the other nations that the United States would scrap 
certain warships and stop construction on others then building, 
he was a leader of his nation. He was acting in accordance with 
power given him in the Naval Building Act passed by Congress 


250 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


in 1916, but nothing in this act required him to make such a 
proposal. He simply found that he had legal authority for 
leadership, and he led. 

6. The Cabinet Members as Leaders. Next to the president 
in importance as government leaders are the ten secretaries who 
form the president’s cabinet. We are apt to think of these sec¬ 
retaries as having only routine executive tasks, and assume that 
the chief difference between succeeding cabinet officers will be 
that of varying executive ability. But this is not so. Even the 
Postmaster-General by his influence as leader can either so 
depress the whole postal service or so arouse it that it is corre¬ 
spondingly inefficient or efficient. When in 1921 the Postmaster- 
General called together representatives of all the postal workers 
•in the United States to meet in Washington in four different 
groups to discuss post-office problems, over five thousand post- 
office workers met in convention and then scattered to their 
respective home towns and cities with new ideas and new en¬ 
thusiasm. It was the Postmaster-General as leader, not as an 
executive, who was responsible for this. 

At a time of crisis it is the secretary who should stir the 
president to try to secure special legislation or to act in some 
way to remedy the danger. It is he who is best fitted to outline 
the kind of law needed, to give out to the newspapers the facts 
which the people need to help them understand the situation. 
Every secretary has many opportunities for leadership. During 
the World War the depressing news reached the Secretary of 
Agriculture at Washington that wheat-growers in certain sec¬ 
tions of the West had lost two successive crops due to winter- 
killing and drought. As a result many farmers had so exhausted 
their money resources that they faced the necessity of fore¬ 
going fall planting. It was even feared that in some cases 
wheat-growers would have to abandon their farms altogether. 
The Secretary of Agriculture urged the President to assign for 
the relief of these farmers part of the funds that Congress had 
appropriated for meeting war-time emergencies. President 
Wilson, therefore, issued an order placing at the disposal of the 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 


251 


Secretary of Agriculture five million dollars. This secretary 
showed leadership in making the suggestion to the President 
and in deciding how to spend the money. When John Hay, 
as Secretary of State, aroused the people to demand the "open 
door” in China; when Roosevelt, as Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy, demanded that we make our gunners the best marksmen 
of the world; when, during the crime wave that swept the na¬ 
tion after the World War, the attorney-general held conferences 
with state officials in different parts of the country to discuss 
ways of dealing with the situation, they were acting as the 
nation needs to have its department heads act—as leaders. 

7 . National Prosperity closely related to Cabinet Leaders. 
In the past we have not had enough of the right kind of agri¬ 
cultural leaders in the government and out of it. To arouse a 
nation to the need of giving immediate attention to the prob¬ 
lems of agriculture and conservation has not been an easy task. 
In 1897 there became Secretary of Agriculture one of the ablest 
leaders the nation has had in any of its departments—James 
Wilson. For sixteen years he remained at the head of this 
department, and so well did he lead that he secured from Con¬ 
gress an increase in appropriations from $3,000,000 to over 
$24,000,000 a year and an increase in helpers from twenty-five 
hundred to fourteen thousand. This meant that valuable inves¬ 
tigations for surveying the soil of the country were begun, and 
many experiment stations were started. Each succeeding year 
the heads of the departments of Agriculture and the Interior 
(through its bureaus of conservation, its geological survey, 
etc.) are trying to turn the tide of indifference on the part of the 
people toward an intelligent interest in these critical problems. 

8. Above All Government Leaders towers the President. 
Unlike the president, however, the secretaries have no direct 
influence on Congress. They have the same personal power as 
the president to suggest bills that need to be passed, but that is 
all. Because of the power of veto which he alone holds, the presi¬ 
dent can often force a bill through Congress merely by threaten¬ 
ing to veto some favorite bill of a group of congressmen. It is 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



252 

the president, after all, who is the most powerful and the most 
important of our national leaders. He is the one who must 
stand by, no matter what are the discouragements that threaten 
him. Many a cabinet officer has resigned his position to earn a 
larger salary ot to take up work that was not subject to con¬ 
stant criticism and faultfinding, as is that of all cabinet officers. 


© Keystone View Co. 

Three of America’s leaders, one of whom—Herbert Hoover—is world-famous. 
Notice how keen and alert their faces are 

In some cases these officers, by resigning, have really failed the 
people—failed to continue to lead. But no president has ever 
failed the people in this respect. 

9 . The Vice President as Leader. Another important gov¬ 
ernment official who may be a leader is the vice president. One 
might call him a reserve leader, for in the case of the president’s 
death he becomes the nation’s most conspicuous leader. Unless 
that time comes his chief task is an executive one—presiding at 
the meetings of the Senate. During Harding’s administration 
the vice president was admitted to the cabinet meetings, and 
thus indirectly became one of the helpful leaders of the work 
life of the nation. 







THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 


253 


10 . Heads of Government Bureaus are often Leaders. Not 
only are the department heads leaders of the nation, but often 
the men in charge of the different bureaus in each department 
are leaders also. For instance, one of our commissioners-general 
of immigration, who heads the bureau of immigration in the 
Department of Labor, by lecturing in different cities and writ¬ 
ing for the magazines on the problems of immigration, proved 
himself an authority on the subject and was looked to for 
leadership. The head of the bureau of education (one of the 
many subdivisions of the Department of the Interior) can, if he 
has the ability, become a leader in educational matters. One 
of the bureaus most useful to the business men of the nation 
is the bureau of standards of the Department of Commerce, 
which works out standards for testing iron, steel, cotton, wheat, 
and other commodities produced and manufactured in this 
country. This bureau was "made” by an Illinois professor who 
had worked his way through college by copying lectures for 
other students and by making blue prints. When he became a 
professor of electrical engineering at the University of Illinois 
he one day suggested to the Secretary of the Treasury that our 
government badly needed what Germany had long had—an ade¬ 
quate bureau of standards. He drafted a bill which Congress 
passed, and was chosen the bureau’s first director. 

When Secretary of the Interior Lane named the qualifica¬ 
tions that the head of the bureau of Indian affairs must have, 
he showed that the Indian commissioner, like all important 
government officials, should be an able leader. 

He must be a man above suspicion of mercenary motives, 
moral weakness or administrative incompetency; a man of 
such established, sterling character that the very coupling 
of his name will command confidence by his ability and 
integrity, but one sufficiently sympathetic and imagina¬ 
tive, either by natural endowment or by environment and 
training, to understand the Indians’ point of view, to feel 
with the Indians’ sensibilities, to see with the Indians’ eyes 
the many problems that confront them and him, 


254 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


11 . Leaders of Congress. Other important leaders in Wash¬ 
ington are to be found in the Capitol or in the great Senate and 
House of Representatives office buildings near the Capitol. These 
are leaders of Congress, some of whom are leaders by virtue of 
the position forced on them and some by virtue of their ability 
and earnestness. As we explained in Chapter VII, the work of 
Congress is done largely through committees. It is the chair¬ 
men of the most important committees who are, because of this 
chairmanship, leaders. One of the most important Senate com¬ 
mittees is that on foreign relations, the chairman of which can 
become one of the leaders of the United States in its relations 
with the outside world. The president, the Secretary of State, 
our ambassadors to England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, 
and the chairman of the Senate foreign-relations committee 
are the men who stand to the outside world as America. 

But the chairmen of all important committees are also 
leaders. In addition to these the two dominant political parties 
have each a leader in both Houses of Congress. The leader of 
the party which has the greater number of representatives in 
Congress is called the majority leader, the leader of the other 
party is known as the minority leader. 

The chief function of the majority leader is to keep the 
business of the House well in hand, to look after details, to 
see to it, especially on important occasions, that his party 
fellows are present, and generally to supervise and lead in 
debate. He must necessarily keep in close touch with the 
chairmen of the committees. The duties of the minority 
leader are much the same as those of the majority leader. 

In order to succeed, both leaders must possess tact, pa¬ 
tience, firmness, ability, courage, quickness of thought, and 
knowledge of the rules and practices of the House. 

Two other government officials connected with Congress are 
leaders because of their position: the vice president, who pre¬ 
sides at the sessions of the Senate, and the Speaker, who pre¬ 
sides at the sessions of the House of Representatives. What 
these men are in character, knowledge of legislative matters, 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 255 

knowledge of men, and eagerness to serve the nation determine 
what kind of leaders they will be. 

12 . The Governors of the States as Leaders. Among govern¬ 
mental leaders next in importance to the president, cabinet, and 
congressional leaders are the governors. There are many things 
which make it difficult for a governor to be an efficient leader. 
In only twenty-two states does a governor serve for four years; 
in twenty-five states his term is but two years; in one state it is 
three years. Unless a man has already become a recognized 
leader in some other official position, he can do little as governor 
to lead the way to better times in one or two years. However, 
the people, when there is trouble or perplexity, try to choose as 
governor a man who has already been a leader in his private 
capacity, so that in his governorship he will be merely continu¬ 
ing his leadership. 

The moment a governor makes a proposal or outlines a plan, 
instantly this is repeated throughout the state by means of the 
newspapers. Immediately church societies, chambers of com¬ 
merce, influential men and women in every community, write 
or telegraph to the governor and to their senators and repre¬ 
sentatives either their approval or their disapproval. The gov¬ 
ernor, like the president, by issuing a special message to the 
legislature and to the people of the state, can become a real 
force in securing some reform or bringing about some change. 

A governor’s chief official powers are these, although they 
differ somewhat in the different states: 

1. He has the appointment of certain officials and members of boards, 
although his power in this respect is very slight when compared with 
that of the president. 

2. He is commander in chief of the state militia and can call out this 
force whenever in his judgment it is advisable. 

3. He can grant pardons and reprieves to convicted criminals, under 
certain restrictions. 

4. Like the president, he sends a message to the legislature at the 
opening of each session, reporting on conditions and suggesting means 
of improving them. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


256 

5. He can call a special session of the legislature when conditions make 
it seem advisable. 

6. He can either publicly or privately suggest to individual members 
or committees of the legislature bills that he believes should be passed. 

7. By the power of veto (which every governor has, except in North 
Carolina) he can prevent bills from becoming law unless they are re¬ 
passed over his veto. He can also veto certain items in a bill and approve 
others—a power which the president does not have. 

In exercising these powers, except that of pardoning and 
reprieving, he may be acting either as an executive or as a 
leader, or as both. He would probably be acting merely as an 
executive when he appointed the members of a new state 
minimum-wage board, for instance. But if he considered the 
board of special importance because of some critical condition 
in the state, by appointing some unusually able persons against 
the advice of his council or the politicians or legislators he might 
indeed be a leader. In calling out the state militia in case of 
serious trouble the governor is a leader if he sees the need and 
makes the decision before the trouble becomes so serious that 
much harm has been done, or before the legislature forces him 
to act. A true leader prevents trouble. 

But the greatest power of the governor as a leader lies in 
suggesting new laws, the repeal of old laws, the carrying out 
of existing laws. If the governor is only an executive he rec¬ 
ommends only what others have urged him to recommend. 
That is, he does largely as he is advised, without studying things 
out for himself. Even in so important an act as calling a spe¬ 
cial session of the legislature he will not be leader if he waits 
until the people throughout the state clamor for such a session. 

13 . The House of Governors. One of the things that has 
made people more and more look to their governors for leader¬ 
ship is the House of Governors, founded in 1907, consisting of 
the governors of all the states and of Alaska. This House meets 
frequently to discuss the problems that concern all the states. 
The first conference was called by President Roosevelt in 1907, 
and the second met in 1910. Since that year there has been an 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 257 

annual conference. That the coming together each year of the 
official leaders of the states really benefits the people is most 
certain. To discuss with other governors what are the successes 
and failures in other states is an important part of a governor’s 
training. All the subjects brought up at these meetings are 
those that relate to the critical problems of that year. Each 
governor, therefore, is eager to get from the conference ideas 
and information from which he can form plans to present to the 
legislature of his state. 

14 . The Government Leaders of the Community. In the com¬ 
munity itself it is the mayor, the city manager, or some corre¬ 
sponding official who is the chief government executive and 
leader. Much depends on the particular form of the local 
government as to how much power such an official really has. 
In such cities as New York and Chicago the mayor has great 
influence for good or evil, chiefly because the appointment of 
so many important city officials is left to him. The mayor can 
lead the way to a clean, honest, efficient city government by 
appointing the right men to the different boards, or can lead 
in the opposite direction by appointing the wrong men. In 
some cities the leadership of the mayor is limited by the com¬ 
mon council, which must approve the mayor’s appointments. 
In many cases while the city charter allows the mayor to ap¬ 
point certain officials, it gives to the people the power to choose 
others; for example, in a number of cities the members of the 
school board are elected directly by the people, and the mayor 
is powerless to make changes. 

15 . Many Different Government Leaders. It would be im¬ 
possible within the space of one chapter to name even a small 
part of the different kinds of government leaders. Every person 
who has under him one or more persons, whether an officer in 
the army, a police captain or commissioner, a teacher, a prin¬ 
cipal, has a position of leadership. During the World War an 
American officer sent word to headquarters that unless he had 
reenforcements at once he must surrender. General Pershing 
promptly sent back word, "Turn your command over and re- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


258 

port at headquarters.” An officer who is a leader might ask for 
reenforcements but could never talk of surrender. Although he 
had been given a position as leader, this officer did not have the 
qualifications of leadership. A different kind of leader was a 
former police commissioner of New York City. He had so in¬ 
spired the men under him with the spirit of accomplishment 
that when the ship Carpathia put into port with the little group 
of survivors of the great steamship Titanic , that had been sunk 
in mid-ocean by an iceberg, a newspaper editor could give these 
instructions to the reporters who were to cover the story for 
his paper: 

When the Carpathia docks tonight, which, as closely as 
I can figure it, will be between 9 and 9.15, there will prob¬ 
ably be thirty thousand people held back by the police. 

The arrangements may go to pieces, but I imagine Waldo’s 
men will not let the crowd break through. 

Every time a crowd breaks through, every time there is a mob, 
every time an army or a part of an army retreats in disorder, 
something is wrong with the leader. 

16 . The Ability to Lead is Something More than the Ability 
to Plan. The army officer and the police commissioner were 
executive officials. Much of their success or failure was due to 
careful or careless planning; but it was something besides 
lack of planning that caused the army officer to talk of sur¬ 
render, something besides good planning that made it certain 
that "Waldo’s men” would prevent disorder when the boat 
bringing the Titanic survivors docked. At the close of the war, 
when food relief was desperately needed in Austria, the first 
food train that came through was that of the American relief 
association, of which Hoover was the head. Other trains had 
attempted to get through, but had been held up at the border. 
The American train, in charge of a United States corporal and a 
private, was also held up, and the American doughboys were 
told that trains were not moving just then. "But this one is,” 
replied the corporal. "We have orders from Hoover to get 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 259 



through, and we’re going.” At the point of the corporal’s gun 
the engineer was forced to pull out. The most minute and 
skillful plans made by Hoover as executive might not have 
succeeded in this emergency. It was Hoover the leader that in¬ 
spired the doughboys to 
get their train through. 

17 . Party Leaders. In 
the United States there 
is also a large group of 
leaders who have no 
connection with the 
government, yet di¬ 
rectly affect the govern¬ 
ment of town, city, 
state, and nation. These 
have various names— 
party leaders, political 
bosses, or ward-heelers. 

It is the business of 
these party leaders to 
persuade as many peo¬ 
ple as possible to vote 
for their candidates for 
office. Before every 
election, be it a petty 
local election or the 
election for president of 
the United States, these 
leaders—the honest and 
the dishonest—try to 

show the people that their party leads the way to prosperity. 
At every election several different groups of party leaders try 
to lead as many people as possible to vote for their candidate. 
Often the candidates themselves do their part toward "leading 
voters to vote for them as leaders.” In no part of American life 
are able leaders more greatly needed than in political parties. 


© Press Illustrating Service 

One of America’s naval leaders. Fearlessness 
and ability to lead are shown in every line of 
this rear-admiral’s face 




26 o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


18 . Some of our Work Leaders: Bank Directors. Often the 
most important leaders in the nation have no connection with 
the government or even with political parties. These unofficial 
leaders are so numerous that it would be difficult to compile a 
list of them for any one year. Among the most important of 
these are the work leaders, who include leaders in finance, in 
business, in agriculture, in industrial education, in labor matters. 



© George R. King 

One of the many cooperative creameries in our rural sections. For every such 
help to the community there have to be able, tireless leaders 


Banks help make and unmake businesses and thus bring 
success or failure to towns and cities. Every day banks lend 
money to owners of factories, store keepers, makers of bridges 
and buildings, and managers of railroads to buy materials, pay 
wages, and meet other expenses. The power that banks may 
wield is partly due to the fact that in hard times they may not 
have enough reserve money to renew the loans of all the men 
who are in a tight place. For instance, perhaps seventy-five out of 
a hundred men who had borrowed money from a certain bank 
could not repay it when it was due, simply because their cus¬ 
tomers could not pay them. Perhaps a shoe manufacturer owed 
the bank $40,000, and while shoe dealers in different cities owed 








26 i 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 

him much more than this, they could not then pay, because 
people were buying only half as many shoes as usual. Even if 
the manufacturer was sure of getting his money sometime, if 
the bank would not extend the loan he would have to fail. At 
such times as these the banks cannot renew loans if by so doing 
the deposits of the people are endangered. A bank itself fails 
when it has not on hand enough money to meet all the checks of 
depositors. Therefore many a bank has had to be the indirect 
cause of an honest manufacturer’s failure when it wanted to 
help him. In such times of crisis the banks decide for them¬ 
selves which businesses to help out, and thus it is possible for 
them to dictate who shall prosper and who fail. 

19 . Financial Leaders have helped build up Industry. The 
real leadership of a bank president or director is best shown 
when he encourages new enterprises like railroads, telephones, 
and telegraphs. It is most often private banking houses, how¬ 
ever, that give help to bold undertakings. National and state 
banks, because they hold so many thousands of dollars of the 
people’s money, are forbidden by law to invest their funds 
except in certain approved ways. In a private banking concern, 
however, most of the money used to lend to business men, man¬ 
ufacturers, and others is that of the directors and stockholders. 
They can therefore run as great risks as they desire. It is these 
banks that have often helped out a state, a town, and even a 
nation, when it faced disaster. American bankers lost an oppor¬ 
tunity for patriotic leadership when they refused to lend money 
for the building of a railroad in Alaska, from Skagway to 
Yukon, when gold was first discovered in the Klondike. A civil 
engineer went to the leading bankers in the United States with 
a plan for such a railroad, but they thought it too hazardous a 
proposition. Turned down here, the engineer went to London 
and secured the loan of five million dollars. Thus the most 
northerly railroad of the American people was built with 
British money. 

But there have been many instances of the opposite kind 
of spirit—bankers risking private investments for the good 


262 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


of the nation. In 1877, after General Miles had been fight¬ 
ing the Nez Perce War out in the Yellowstone and his men 
had returned to civilization, worn out, they had only pay slips 
to show for their work. The United States Treasury had no 
money with which to pay its soldiers; all it could do was to 
give them paymaster’s checks. A money-lender offered to cash 
these, charging the soldiers twenty-five cents for each dollar. 
But at just the moment when both officers and men were about 
to take advantage of the money-lender’s avarice, a private bank¬ 
ing house in New York City offered to cash all the paymaster’s 
checks at once, charging only one cent on the dollar, which was 
barely enough to cover the cost of the clerical work involved. 
This is only one of many instances where bankers have led the 
way out of disaster or into prosperity. 

20 . Some of our Business Leaders. Another kind of work 
leader is the business man who dares to introduce new methods. 
John Wanamaker was a business leader when he proved in his 
Philadelphia store many years ago that one could have a fixed 
price for all his goods and make money. Before this, salesmen 
got what they could for an article instead of simply stating its 
price and holding to it. Every reputable store today follows the 
lead of Mr. Wanamaker. The United States has had daring 
leaders in another form of business enterprise—in railroad¬ 
building. The fact that this country has led the world in 
railroad-making is due to the energy and daring of men like 
Cyrus K. Holliday, the father of the Santa Fe Railroad, which 
grew from nothing to a transcontinental system of over 
eleven thousand miles. Such a bold leader always draws to 
him other leaders who assist in planning and carrying the 
work to completion. 

Of the kind of work leaders who do daring things that 
make the timid ashamed of their timidity James B. Eads is an 
illustration. He ranks with the great builders of railroad sys¬ 
tems, steamship systems, and cable lines. He was the man who 
planned and supervised the construction of the great steel 
bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, but his masterpiece 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 263 

was the deepening of the channel at the mouth of the Missis¬ 
sippi River. In accomplishing this he was in every sense a 
leader. Having learned many of the secrets of the river while 
building the St. Louis bridge, he continued to study it, es¬ 
pecially the problem of making a broad, deep exit to the sea, 
whereby ocean-going vessels of the deepest draft could enter 
and leave in safety. To increase the navigability of the river 
meant to aid transportation, by which the work life of the 
nation would be benefited. Confident that he could accomplish 
the desired result by constructing a system of jetties, he per¬ 
suaded the government to let him make the experiment at his 
own risk, Congress to appropriate money for the enterprise if 
it was successful—and he succeeded. 

21. Agricultural Leaders. No group of work leaders is more 
necessary to the welfare of the United States than the agricul¬ 
tural leaders. The man who by working patiently and quietly 
on his farm develops a variety of potato a little hardier than 
any previously grown, as did Luther Burbank, or the man who 
breeds a kind of seed corn better adapted to certain climates than 
any other, as did A. J. Wimple, or the man who helps organize 
throughout the South and West successful boys’ corn clubs, as 
did Seaman A. Knapp, is the kind of forward-looking agricultural 
leader that needs to be multiplied in the United States. 

Knapp was a national leader as well as a local leader. He 
was employed by the Department of Agriculture to visit China, 
Japan, and the Philippines to investigate rice-growing, and 
later was sent to other countries to study general agricultural 
methods. To become a national leader in so difficult a phase 
of our work life as agriculture meant an unusual preparation; 
it is not surprising, therefore, to learn that it was only by steady 
climbing that Knapp rose to prominence: 

Graduate of Union College, New York State. 

Taught school, but because of ill health went West. 

Settled on a farm in Iowa. 

Bred Shorthorn cattle and Berkshire hogs. 

Introduced heavy draft horses into his community. 


264 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Helped organize the first live-stock association in the state. 

Proved the value of seed selection in increasing yield of corn. 

Organized and edited The Western Stock Journal and Farmer. 

Became professor of agriculture in Iowa State College, then its president. 

Organized a development company and bought for it a million acres 
in Louisiana. 

Conducted demonstrations in rice-growing for Louisiana farmers. 

Was sent by the United States government to Asia to study rice¬ 
growing and general agriculture. 

Was sent by the United States government to Texas to study the 
boll weevil. 

Introduced crop rotation in parts of the South, where formerly 
cotton had been the only crop. 

Formed corn clubs in parts of most of the Southern states. 

Whether it is a bank, an office, a factory, or a wheat field, the 
greatest need of the nation today is right leaders—leaders who 
love their country and believe in its future; leaders who know 
the satisfaction that comes from work well done; leaders who 
know that the success of the nation of tomorrow depends upon 
the kind of work and the spirit of the workers of today. It is 
not the conspicuously bad or conspicuously good leaders that 
are of most importance. It is the thousands of unknown leaders 
in every place of work—the worker who quietly influences his 
fellow workers to "lie down” on the job, to work against the 
employer on every possible occasion, on the one hand; and 
on the other, the worker who day in and day out gives good 
measure of work in return for the wages and confidence of his 
employer, who takes interest in what he does, and tries to un¬ 
derstand the whole work of the office or factory or industry of 
which he is a part, who knows something of the problems of the 
owner and superintendent as well as of the workers,—these 
are the leaders that have the greatest influence. 

22. The Leaders in Helpfulness. There is another kind of 
leader in the United States today—the leader of the discour¬ 
aged, the oppressed, and the unfortunate. While vice president 
of the United States, Thomas R. Marshall paid this tribute to 
one of these leaders: 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 265 


I have sat for seven years in the seats of the mighty, and 
I have met, perhaps, more of the great men of the earth 
than any American prior to this age has even seen— 
scholars, statesmen, diplomats, patriots, orators, warriors; 
and yet of all the great ones that the opportunities of my 
office have enabled me to meet, the greatest man I ever 
met was not a man; he was a woman, and his name was 
Evangeline Booth. 

Sometimes su^h leaders are called reformers. Every true leader 
is a kind of reformer, for he is trying to change something. 

A person like Evangeline Booth is a twofold leader, showing 
the way out to the discouraged and showing the nation how 
to help the discouraged. Booker Washington was also such a 
leader: he showed his own people that their only way out was 
by work, and he showed the rest of the nation how they could 
help the negro help himself. He traveled through European 
countries, studying the "man farthest down,” so that he might 
be better fitted to lead his own people in the United States. 
Judge Lindsey was also a twofold leader: he showed lawless 
boys a way out of their difficulties, but, most important of all, 
he showed the whole nation how to help such boys. Another 
twofold leader was Helen Keller, the deaf, dumb, and blind 
child who learned to read, write, and speak, and who, by taking 
a college course, by writing and lecturing, not only led those 
afflicted like herself out of the darkness but showed all the rest 
of the nation how to help the blind and the deaf. 

Sometimes conditions become very black and there seems 
no way out, but even then some unknown person is quietly 
at work on a plan to change hopelessness into hope. After 
Lawrence Veiller had shown in New York State how much 
could be done to eliminate slums by means of the right kind 
of tenement law, men and women in other states began to try 
to transform the slums in their big cities. One of the most 
successful of these leaders was Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon 
of Indiana. We give on the next page some of the details of her 
work, to show what it sometimes costs to be a leader. 


266 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



For six years Mrs. Bacon worked ceaselessly to get a housing bill 
through the state legislature. She made her beginning by preparing 
tenement regulations to be inserted in a building ordinance of her home 
city. After this was put through she started on a campaign for a state¬ 
wide tenement law. First she studied and traveled widely to learn what 
other states had done. She discussed the kind of law needed with 
prominent social workers. Gradually she became acquainted with all 


A boatload of Russian immigrants entering New York Harbor. What kind of 
leaders will they find in school, in their neighborhood, and in their work? 

the prominent leaders in the battle against the slums in other parts of 
the country. She drafted the kind of law she believed the state ought 
to have, then painstakingly collected material to use in proving to legis¬ 
lators that such a law was needed. This proof material consisted of 
photographs of bad housing conditions, reports of inadequate rules and 
violation of existing rules, a "slum map” of the state. Drawing on this 
material she wrote hundreds of personal letters and made scores of ad¬ 
dresses before churches, clubs, and societies. 

When the legislature opened she talked with committees and appeared 
before both House and Senate. After many delays her bill was passed, 
but so amended that it applied to only the two largest cities of the state. 
Mrs. Bacon at once drafted another bill which should apply to the whole 





THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 267 

state, and the next year again went to the legislature. By this time her 
brave efforts had secured the assistance of the press, many prominent 
people, and such influential associations as the State Association of 
Architects and State Board of Health. At the next legislature she again 
appeared with her bill, having in the meantime made a lecture tour 
through the state to gain additional support for it. Finally, after spend¬ 
ing every day of the legislative session at the Capitol watching, waiting, 
persuading, she saw it passed with one opposing vote. 

Many persons of ability do not have the courage to pay the 
price that Mrs. Bacon did. But every reform must have such 
leaders, and in the schools today there are pupils who will 
become similar reform leaders of the evils of tomorrow. 

23. First Steps in Leadership. The young person ambitious 
to serve his country may feel that leadership in his home village 
or neighborhood is too unimportant a service to render. But 
big leaders are always little leaders first. If the nation today 
had to do without either its few great national leaders or its 
thousands of capable little-known community leaders, it would 
be safer to dispense with the former. In spite of the fact that 
we are a great nation we are first and foremost a nation of 
villages, towns, and cities. 

To be a community leader one has merely to start doing 
what ought to be done, no matter how small or difficult or dis¬ 
couraging the task. Once a thing is well started, the rest is 
fairly simple. It is always one person who does the starting. 
In Swope Center, Kansas, at one time there was a vacant-lot 
eyesore. It was a dumping-ground for cinders from an adjoin¬ 
ing factory and for the cans, bottles, and rubbish from neigh¬ 
boring families. It was estimated that it would take six months 
and $600 to clear it and make it ready for a garden. But all 
that the owner of the land would promise was to give ten 
dollars’ worth of grass seed and permission to use the ground. 
The person who began the movement to eliminate the eyesore, 
however, continued to lead. The factory manager was inter¬ 
viewed, but he was not encouraging; he said he would have the 
cinders removed sometime within six months if he could find 


268 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


anybody to attend to it. He was not allowed, however, to get 
away with good intentions. The leader saw to it that the tin 
cans were taken away, and one morning the cinders disap¬ 
peared. When the factory manager saw that a group of people 
were earnestly trying to improve a bad spot, he was ashamed 
not to do his part. It is always so; where there is a leader there 
are those who will be led. 

24. The Advice of a Great Leader. A great leader named 
Abraham Lincoln once gave this advice to a young man: 

You must not wait to be brought forward by the older 
men. For instance, do you suppose that I should ever have 
got into notice if I had waited to be hunted up and pushed 
forward by older men? You young men get together and 
form a Rough and Ready club and have regular meetings 
and speeches. Let everyone play-the part he can play best 
—some speak, some sing, and all "holler.” 

Lincoln had in mind politics when he gave this advice, but it 
applies equally to any kind of leadership that has to do with 
affairs of the whole or any part of the community. When a 
person sees something that needs to be done that can be accom¬ 
plished only by the united efforts of a group of people, then it 
is his duty to follow Lincoln’s advice and "holler.” 

25. Ways in which Many can Lead. Some of the everyday 
ways of leading open to everyone are 

i. Getting together painstakingly facts about something that needs 
to be done. 

This is one of the ways that pupils while still in school can help. 
At a bad street corner where many accidents had happened, high-school 
pupils made a survey for a week, counting the number of vehicles that 
passed and the number of pedestrians that used the crossing. These 
figures were sent to the leading newspaper, and as a result a traffic 
policeman was stationed at the corner. In another case a person who had 
an errand in a part of the city unfamiliar to him noticed that the streets 
were full of litter. He visited other sections and found that only in 
streets where large numbers of the foreign-born lived were the streets 
untidy. He knew that the street-cleaning department was supposed to 


THE KIND OF LEADERS AMERICA HAS 269 

clean all streets in crowded sections every night. So for a week he 
went through these streets the last thing at night and the first thing 
in the morning. He found that cleaning was done only once in a while, 
instead of regularly. The dirty streets were not the result of untidy 
habits on the part of the people but of the negligence of the city. The 
man set down the facts gathered, had many typewritten copies made of 
them, distributing these to the board of health, the mayor, and the 
newspapers. At once the people were aroused, and so much indignation 
was expressed that the city officials were forced to remedy matters. 
General complaints will do little good, but whoever will have the 
patience to collect facts is taking the first step in leadership. 

2. Joining some society that is trying to remedy evils. 

As a member of such a society there will be two ways of leading: 
(1) serving on important committees that make studies and recommend 
what shall be done, and (2) as an ordinary member making suggestions 
in business meetings that will give new ideas to the committees. 

3. Leading by the indirect method. 

Some of the most powerful leaders in the world today are men and 
women of whom we never hear. They see something that needs to be 
done, and quietly move about among people and at the right opportunity 
make the kind of suggestions that arouse others to become active 
leaders. When they find a person unusually well equipped to lead they 
stand by him with encouragement and appreciation. 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Every government official either helps make laws or helps carry 
them out. As you know, we usually speak of those who make laws as the 
legislative department of government and those who carry them out as 
the administrative or executive department. Sometimes those connected 
with courts are referred to as if they belonged to an entirely different de¬ 
partment—the judicial. But judges and other court officials help carry 
out the laws and therefore are really executives. Make a list of the 
principal elected government officials in (1) the nation, (2) your state, 
(3) your county, (4) your community. Against each show whether it is 
a lawmaking or an executive position. Go over the list a second time 
and indicate which officials have opportunities to be leaders, and give an 
idea as to what some of the opportunities are. 

2 . Make a list similar to that just compiled, showing the chief ap¬ 
pointed officials in the nation, in your state, in your county, and in your 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


270 

community. Show how these have an opportunity for leadership. Copy 
both lists into your loose-leaf civics notebook for use later. 

3. Let the class discuss the principal leaders of today in the govern¬ 
ment and out of it, in the nation, the state, and the community. 

4. Make a list of present conditions in your community that seem 
most in need of being changed, or of new things that need to be done. 
Are there leaders for these? If a leader was found for each of these 
things, what would he probably do first ? 

5. The text gives only a few illustrations of the different leaders. 
Make as complete a list as possible of the kinds of work leaders and 
leaders in helpfulness needed today. Re-read Chapter III and state 
what kind of leaders the different groups of workers need. 

6 . Newspapers and organizations are often leaders. Explain in what 
ways. Bring to class newspapers to illustrate your points. 

7. Using the chamber-of-commerce organization formed in connec¬ 
tion with Chapter X, prepare a plan that this organization could 
use in leading the people of the community to do many of the things 
that need to be done. 

8 . For every wrong thing, however small, a leader is needed. Make 
a list of all the wrong things that affect your life—your home, your 
play, your work. Include all such things as inadequate mail service, too 
much soft-coal smoke, lack of playgrounds, poor electric-car service, too 
few periodicals in library. 

9. The text has emphasized work leaders. But turn to your list of 
government leaders and see how many of these help the home in indirect 
ways. 

10. Turn back to the home lists compiled for Chapter VI and show 
in what ways leaders are needed in your state and community. Most of 
the leaders in helpfulness are home leaders. Show that this is so. 

11. Some of the important leaders in the nation are not mentioned in 
the text. There are educational leaders—men like ex-President Eliot of 
Harvard University—who point the way to better methods of teaching. 
Make a list of several such leaders who are living today, and discuss 
them in class. Include the names of those who are leading in your 
state. 

Note to Teacher. In connection with Exercise 1 , perhaps effective 
use can be made of certain parts of the Appendix (pp. xvii-xx) for the 
study of the Constitution. 


CHAPTER XII 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 

1. The Primrose House. On a quiet street in one of our large 
cities stands a gray-gabled, quaint little house with a red- 
lacquer door, called the " Primrose House.” A painted sign tells 
the passer-by that "Here dwells Youth.” All day automobiles 
come and go; all day the door is swinging. But the stranger 
who passes and repasses, trying to understand the secret of the 
magic sign by scanning the faces of those who enter and those 
who leave, is baffled. He sees no sign of youth, only of wealth 
and fashion. In spite of its attractive name and its quaint 
beauty it is only a house of fashion, not the dwelling-place 
of youth. 

The real dwelling-places of youth in the United States are 
the thousands of buildings over which no words appear, but 
through whose doors more than twenty million boys and girls, 
young men and women, pass and repass. These are the school- 
houses and colleges that dot the land. Many of them are neither 
quaint nor beautiful, as is the Primrose House; some of them 
are like great palaces and castles. But in them all there is only 
youth and the spirit of youth. 

2. School prepares for Accomplishment. Youth, which is the 
first precious gift of life to every person, soon slips away; but 
the spirit of youth can be gained and kept by those who live 
eagerly, as the boy and girl live. Those who live eagerly are 
those who achieve today and plan to achieve greater things to¬ 
morrow. When somebody asked Theodore Vail what thing he 
considered most worth while in life, he said, "Accomplishment.” 
The schools of America prepare young people for accomplish¬ 
ment. Every year there are more schools in the United States 
than in the preceding year, and more kinds of schools. Other 

271 


272 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


countries have many schools, and some countries many kinds 
of schools, but no nation in the world reaches so many of its 
people with so much help in preparing for the later years. With 
patience and self-denial a person can prepare himself for a use¬ 
ful life without the aid of a school, but it will take him longer 
and will cost him heavily in health and strength. The United 
States, by constantly changing the courses of study and opening 
new kinds of schools to meet changing conditions, tries to save 
its young people from the waste and strain of studying unaided. 
The young people who every year pass through the school doors 
into the world of action have stronger bodies, keener minds, and 
greater courage because of the school years. 

3. Some of the Nation’s Important Work is done by the 
Young. Some of the most important and difficult work of the 
United States has been done by its young people. 

Washington was only seventeen when he was employed 
to survey the land set apart by the General Assembly of 
the colony of Virginia for the town of Alexandria; and he 
was barely twenty-two when, at the outbreak of the French 
and Indian War, he was placed in command of troops. 
Alexander Hamilton was secretary of the treasury at 
twenty-five. Minor C. Keith, a young American of twenty- 
three, was the engineer who built the most difficult part of 
the Northern Railway in Costa Rica. His work involved 
laying tracks across a long stretch of deadly swamp land 
and a steep mountain range, and first of all making a port 
suitable as a terminus for a railway. Although more than 
four thousand of the men in his employ, and three of his 
brothers who assisted him as engineers, died of exposure or 
disease during the work, he achieved success. At twenty- 
two Herbert Hoover won his first conspicuous success in a 
corner of West Australia, where he had been sent by a 
London mining firm to uncover a "big new mine.” At 
twenty-three a young man of a Southern town was treas¬ 
urer of the Rotary Club, member of the board of directors 
of the Young Men’s Business League, and vice-president 
and assistant treasurer of the mill in which he had started 
to work as office boy at twenty dollars a month. 



WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 273 

4. School prepares for a Lifetime of Usefulness. In their 
eagerness to make themselves count while they are still young, 
however, students should not for an instant forget that in 
America schooldays are intended also to prepare them for a 
long stretch of useful years that will end only with their death. 


© Keystone View Co. 

In school young people form habits that give them strength of body and the 
spirit of accomplishment 


It is hopelessly old-fashioned to divide one’s life into three 
parts—youth, manhood or womanhood, old age—and call youth 
the period of preparation, manhood and womanhood the period 
of accomplishment, and old age the years of rest and comfort¬ 
able idleness. 

Idleness is always wrong and no red-blooded American 
wants a long period of rest. He wants only periods of service 
and accomplishment. Therefore if a young man is planning to 
be a successful civil engineer at twenty-five, he is also planning 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


274 



to be the best engineer in his part of the country at sixty. And 
his hope is that when disease or accident finally comes he will 
be in the midst of his best achievement. There is no better illus¬ 
tration of such a worker than Michelangelo, who, when he was 
eighty, though feeble and bent, worked tirelessly by day as 

architect of St. Peter’s 
at Rome and at night, 
by the flaring light of 
a candle, carved out of 
marble a last message 
to the world. His hand 
was no longer steady, 
and when finally a 
blow went too deep he 
stopped in weariness 
and discouragement. 
The great picture in 
marble was never com¬ 
pleted, but already he 
had made something 
that would not be for¬ 
gotten. It now stands 
behind the high altar 
in the great Duomo 
of Florence—a group 
showing the body of 
the crucified Christ 
being lowered from the 
cross by Joseph of Arimathea into the arms of his mother and 
Mary Magdalene. Though the face of the mother is seen only 
dimly in the uncut marble, it is inexpressibly beautiful. When 
somebody asked Saint Gaudens why he worked all day and 
every day, regardless of inspiration, his reply was, "If I do, and 
inspiration comes at any time, I am sure of its finding me at 
home.” And not until his final illness seized him did he lay 
aside his tools. 


© Keystone View Co. 

Schooldays and college days prepare for a 
lifetime of usefulness 




WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


275 

5. Much of the Important Work is done by the Aged. There 
have been men of genius and ability in every country who in 
their old age gave the world some of their best work. 

Benjamin Franklin at eighty-one, although he had 
been in public life more than fifty years, served as one of 
the delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Phila¬ 
delphia. In more recent years we have had men like 
Lyman Abbott, author and preacher, who, at eighty-six, 
was a regular contributor to a weekly newspaper, and 
Thomas A. Edison, who, at seventy-four, worked at his in¬ 
ventions in his laboratory twelve hours a day. The railroad 
that extends down the east coast of Florida to St. Augus¬ 
tine, and from that city six hundred miles along the 
Florida Keys—once impassable swamp land and tidewater 
areas—to Key West, was the work of a man past middle 
age, who, as one of his friends said, would long since have 
retired to enjoy the fruits of his labor if he had been a man 
of any other nationality. 

6 . America provides Many Different Kinds of Schools. It 
is to help make pupils useful as long as they live that America 
has an elaborate system of schools. This is why each year 
there are new kinds of schools, new courses of study in old 
schools, and more money voted for equipment. Every state 
now has a compulsory school-attendance law. In five states 
attendance is required until eighteen years of age, in three 
states until seventeen, in thirty-two until sixteen, one until 
fifteen, and six until fourteen. There is no state which does 
not have many high schools, one or more normal schools and 
colleges, and many states have free correspondence courses con¬ 
ducted by the state board of education. Then there are eve¬ 
ning university-extension courses and special Americanization 
classes for those who work during the day. California was the 
first state to send teachers into the homes of foreigners, but 
similar home teaching for immigrant mothers is now done in 
several states. New York City was one of the first communities 
to open a summer high school. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


276 


An illustration of the great variety of schools to be found in 
our cities is furnished by Kansas City, which recently had 


5 high schools 

2 trade schools 
1 dental college 

6 private schools 

3 aviation schools 
87 elementary schools 

1 teachers’ training school 
1 law school 


1 medical school 
32 parochial schools 
3 tractor schools 
1 junior college 
10 business colleges 

1 optical school 

3 automobile schools 

2 nurses’ training schools 


In addition to these there were many other classes and special 
trade schools. In a recent year New York City, in addition to 
the regular public-school classes, had the following special 
schools and classes: 

101 classes of cripple children 
115 classes of pretuberculous children 
26 classes of tuberculous children 

34 classes of children who are blind or have defective sight 
34 classes of deaf children 
18 cardiopathic classes 
257 classes of mental defectives 

3 truant schools housing four hundred boys 
3 probationary schools housing five hundred boys 


In the past Americans have too much neglected their handi¬ 
capped young people, but now they are beginning to under¬ 
stand that even the sightless and those hopelessly crippled 
need to have some kind of school training. One of the things 
awaiting the young people now in school is to find ways of 
educating all the handicapped. There are today many thou¬ 
sands of blind and crippled young people who have no school 
opportunities of any kind. 

7. The Course of Study changed to meet Changing Needs of 
Work Life and Home Life. In spite of the large number of free 
schools, many pupils leave school the moment they reach the 
legal age limit and never again turn to their studies. For this 
reason the courses of study of the elementary schools have had 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


277 


to be planned with the greatest of care. Whenever a new sub¬ 
ject is added or when fewer hours per term are given to one 
subject and more hours to another, it is because a group of 
planners, looking into the future, have seen new opportunities 
and new difficulties awaiting the young people in their work 
life and home life and have tried to make the school prepare 
them to meet changing conditions. It is the same with the 



The applied-art room in an Alabama high school. What is ''applied art”? 
Does your school have such a room ? 


schools as with the laws passed by Congress and the state legis¬ 
latures. They must be made to fit the needs of a rapidly grow¬ 
ing and rapidly changing nation. 

The increasing cost of food has resulted in the teaching of 
elementary agriculture in rural schools, cooking and marketing 
in town and city schools, and the principles of thrift in all 
schools. The fact that each year more families must live in 
crowded apartments and tenements has caused boards of 
education to lay more emphasis on hygiene and sanitation. 
Because fewer children each year have yards in which to play, 
the schools require the teaching of gymnastics and games to 
give needed exercise. 














COMMUNITY CIVICS 



278 

8 . The Minimum Essentials of an American Education. In 

addition to such subjects as changing conditions in work and 
home life make desirable, most elementary schools require all 
pupils to study English, geography, history, civil government, 
hygiene, and mathematics. These are really the "minimum 
essentials” of an American education. Because most pupils are 


© Keystone View Co. 

Many schools have special courses to teach the right way to prepare and 
serve meals in the home 

continuing some or all of these subjects in the high school, they 
need to understand what their purpose and value are. 

9. Why English is studied from Eight to Ten Years. One 
reason for giving so much time to English was expressed many 
years ago by a famous naval commander, John Paul Jones, in 
a letter written to the Marine Board in 1777 : 

None other than a gentleman, as well as a seaman both 
in theory and in practice, is qualified to support the char¬ 
acter of a commissioned officer in the Navy; nor is any 
man fit to command a ship of war who is not also capable 
of communicating his ideas on paper in language that be¬ 
comes his rank. 





WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


279 

This quotation the fourth-year classmen at Annapolis are re¬ 
quired to paste in their English notebook, and it might well be 
inserted in every pupil’s notebook. The world today leaves the 
tongue-tied and the thought-tied person far in the rear. He may 
be able to do useful things with his hands and even to think 
difficult problems through satisfactorily, but he will be only 
half living if he is unable to give others the benefit of what he 
thinks and feels. 

10 . How Useful a Tool English becomes depends on Each 
Person. Talking and writing are our chief tools in accomplish¬ 
ing things. One person will use these tools to accomplish one 
thing, and another an entirely different thing. The poems that 
one can never forget, the great documents, like our Declaration 
of Independence, are illustrations of the highest use to which this 
tool can be put. America as a nation has taken the lead in using 
spoken and written language in settling disputes with other 
nations. In 1812 England and the United States went to war to 
settle the question, Is the deck of a vessel the territory of the 
nation? But not until fifty years later was this question an¬ 
swered, and then by correspondence between our Secretary of 
State and England’s minister of foreign affairs. In 1921 the 
United States tried the experiment of talking to prevent future 
wars. It invited to Washington representatives of all the great 
nations, and for several months these government officials 
discussed ways of reducing navies. A general agreement 
was made; and whether or not it is kept, the United States 
has taken another step toward the substitution of words 
for guns. 

But language is the tool of the bad as well as the good, 
the false as well as the true. Ready speech and a gifted pen 
have done as much harm as good. Aaron Burr charmed every¬ 
one with his speech and for more than twenty years made it 
serve the nation well. But when his heart turned to bitterness 
the gift of eloquence was used to injure his country. In recent 
years in all parts of the United States men have denounced the 
Stars and Stripes, have urged their hearers to overthrow the 


28 o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


present government and seize the property of the rich, in words 
so forceful and cunning that their hearers applauded violently 
and laughed or wept as the speakers desired. 

11. Ability to learn Facts must be gained in School. More 
important, therefore, than the mastery of the English language 
is the ability to learn the truth. Before any man can be a use¬ 
ful citizen he must know the essential facts about the estab¬ 
lishment and growth of the nation. Then he must have the 
ability to put the facts together in a way that will show the 
truth. For this reason the schools have required pupils to learn 
enough of the geography, history, and civil government of their 
country to furnish them with the most important facts for 
straight thinking. 

12. Geography a Foundation. Study. Geography is a founda¬ 
tion study for both history and civil government. It spreads out 
before the student a world of mountains, lakes, deserts, glaciers, 
fertile plains, and river valleys, worthy to be the home of a 
great democratic nation, and it opens to him the world of wheat 
fields, coal mines, factories, and markets—the bread-and-butter 
world in which he is soon to seek a place. It gives him a sense 
of the bigness of the nation—its long rivers, its high mountains, 
its almost limitless plains. No one can tell how much this feel¬ 
ing of great spaces and enormous distances has made it possible 
for Americans to do big things. The study of geography makes 
the American both proud and humble: proud that he has 
some share in the bigness and richness, humble that he shares it 
through no effort of his own. A person should therefore plan 
to study geography long after schooldays are over. An atlas 
should be owned by every family and should be consulted as 
often as the newspaper is read. 

13. History points the Way to the Future. History is never 
merely an account of dead men, of things that are past. It is 
the fascinating account of how the present came to pass, and it 
points the way to the future. In history the pupil gets a picture 
of his nation as it has been made for him by others. Gradually 
he comes to realize that he is part of the unwritten chapter in 



WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 281 

that history and that thirty years from now pupils will read of 
the nation as changed by the young people of today. 

Students need to study the pages of their history to find 
out how well or ill the young people of the past did their work 


© Peter A. J uley 

In school young people get a hilltop vision of the years that are to come and 
the tasks awaiting them 

and what remains for them to do in coming years. When they 
read of the city slums, the desertion of the farms, the wasting of 
soil and forests, the dissatisfaction of factory workers, the 
enormous cost of wars, the spread of wasting diseases, they are 
learning what will help them plan for the future. If it is true 
that every hero makes ten heroes, then for every soldier who 
was killed in the World War there are scattered throughout 








282 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Europe and the United States ten times as many young people 
ready to do some kind of heroic service at home. The words 
that have been placed over one of the memorial gates at Brown 
University—"They gave their Merry Youth away for Coun¬ 
try and for God ”—ought to be true of every class that leaves 
school to attend to the important tasks of peace times. 

14. The Study of Civil Government shows how the Nation 
can be changed. Without the aid of geography and history the 
study of civics would be of little value. Unless a person knows 
the distances in the country and the variations of climate and 
soils, it would be difficult for him to understand how necessary 
it is that much of the work of government be left to the states 
and that many things should also be left to counties, cities, and 
towns. Neither would he understand how important it is that 
every possible government assistance be given to the building 
and upkeep of railroads and roads and to the care of navigable 
streams and the making of canals. Without the help of civics 
he would not understand that by slow, patient effort the machin¬ 
ery of government has been changed to meet changing condi¬ 
tions, and that whatever the needs of the future they can be 
met peacefully and effectively. At a radical meeting held in 
Boston, just after the close of the World War, speaker after 
speaker denounced the Stars and Stripes in a way that brought 
thunderous applause from the audience. During the uproar a 
tall, clear-eyed college student suddenly left the gallery and 
appeared on the platform. The audience, curious at the unan¬ 
nounced arrival, became quiet. The boy came to the edge of 
the platform and pointing to the flag, said, "I want two minutes 
to defend that flag.” He continued to speak, but the catcalls, 
hisses, and shouting of the audience drowned the sound of his 
voice. Finally, to protect the youth from possible harm, a 
police officer asked him to leave. If he had been given the 
opportunity he could have explained simply but clearly what 
the flag and the government that it represented stood for. The 
years of study in high school and college had given him a true 
understanding of his country. 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 



15. The Study of Hygiene helps prepare the Way to Success. 

On an earlier page we have said that school years are the period 
of preparation for accomplishment that should extend up to 
and into the years of old age. Health is necessary to make this 
possible. Therefore one of the studies required in most public 
schools is hygiene and 
physiology. For many 
'years schools have 
taught the harmful ef¬ 
fects of alcohol and thus 
have prevented many 
ruined lives. Ignorance 
of home and public san¬ 
itation has had count¬ 
less victims also. On an 
island off the New Eng¬ 
land coast, not many 
years ago, one could 
not find a single cottage 
whose windows were 
not nailed down for the 
winter. Tuberculosis 
and other wasting dis¬ 
eases flourished on this 
sun-blessed, wind-swept 
island, and all because 
of ignorance of some of 
the fundamental laws 
of health. Wrong eat¬ 
ing and exercise habits have also slain their thousands. Perhaps 
few persons today display such ignorance as the famous English¬ 
man Sidney Smith, who suffered from seven distinct diseases 
and confesses to having eaten forty-one cartloads of meat and 
drink beyond the requirements of health. But wrong eating, 
either of too much food or of the wrong kinds of food, has been 
a common American shortcoming which has resulted in many 


© Keystone View Co. 

The dean of one of our colleges at seventy- 
eight was every day at his office doing a hard 
day’s work 






COMMUNITY CIVICS 


284 

wasted years of useful citizens. All these evils and bad habits 
the early study of hygiene is intended to prevent. 

16. The Study of Mathematics a Help in learning to think 
Things through. The simplest forms of work and home life re¬ 
quire the kind of planning that is gained through the study of 
mathematics. Of course the study of mathematics is a direct 
help in preparation for many different occupations, but it 
has a value greater than this: it teaches a person how to 
think things through. No person is ready to leave school or to 
plan a home of his own until he has acquired this ability. The 
vital difference between savages and civilized peoples is not that 
savages lack information about the world, but that they lack 
the ability to reason a thing out to a logical conclusion. The 
North American Indians believed that a man’s shadow was a 
part of him. "To touch it was to touch him also; to drive a nail 
through it was to injure him mortally.” They also believed 
that disease was caused by a sorcerer and that to wear clothing 
to protect one from rain or wind was wholly useless. We call 
this ignorance or superstition, but it is inability to take things 
as they are and think them through. Any Indian on a sunny 
day could have proved to himself that a shadow could not be 
killed. There would be fewer wasted years if more people 
had learned how to sit down with a problem and think it 
through unaided. 

17. High School prepares for Work Life. We have called the 
studies just referred to—English, geography, history, civil gov¬ 
ernment, hygiene, mathematics—the minimum requirements of 
an education. In addition to these the high school provides a 
wide choice. The boy and girl who are to live on the farm will 
choose physics, chemistry, and agricultural studies. Those who 
expect to go into business offices, in addition to some such 
special courses as bookkeeping, stenography, or salesmanship, 
will choose commercial geography, economics, and a modern 
language. A special course is mapped out for those who plan to 
go to college or to a higher institution to learn a profession. 
Because school is a place where pupils are being prepared for 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 285 

home life and work life, they not only recite lessons but do 
things closely related to work and home. For instance: 

In Standpoint, Idaho, the high-school class in household 
management has complete charge of the cafeteria. One girl 
acts as general manager each week, while meals are pre¬ 
pared by students of the upper grammar-grade classes 
under the supervision of a member of the high-school class. 

An experiment in fertilizers which will last for five years 
is being conducted by the agriculture class of the Prescott 
High School, Arkansas. Twelve miniature farms, each 
showing different uses of fertilizers, are being used to dem¬ 
onstrate the value of different elements in soil cultivation. 

18. School Life affords Opportunities for doing Things in 
Groups. One of the most important parts of school life is doing 
things in groups and getting acquainted with young people of 
different nationalities, different religions, different ambitions. 
School buildings and school programs are more and more being 
planned to bring large numbers of pupils together. The con¬ 
solidated school in rural sections is fast taking the place of 
isolated one-room schools, and an important part of the consoli¬ 
dated school is the assembly room, where socials, lectures, exhi¬ 
bitions, and debates take place. City and town schools have 
stadiums for outdoor plays and games, and indoor halls and 
gymnasiums. No two schools have the same kind of group ac¬ 
tivities, for it is left to the initiative of the pupils and teachers 
to plan these for themselves. The following news item describes 
one of the many social and instructive events that some schools 
are enterprising enough to arrange: 

A Stay-in-School and Go-to-Collegestag social 
was given at the Burlington, North Carolina, 
high school under the supervision of the super¬ 
intendent and the men of the teaching force. 

The best all-round college student from each of 
the leading colleges of the state was invited to 
attend, and the program consisted of a commu¬ 
nity sing, four-minute speeches, a boxing con¬ 
test, and refreshments. The evening showed just 
what enthusiasm and loyalty can accomplish in 
our public schools. 




286 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



19. College offers Advantages that Princes could not Buy. 

From the high school many young people go directly into the 
bread-and-butter world, but an increasingly large number of 
young people enter college. College is in most respects like the 
ideal life young people hope some day to live. Most of the 
things they want are theirs for a few years, and then they go out 
into a very different kind of world to try to win for themselves 


© Mary H. Northend 

Schooldays offer many opportunities for doing things in groups 

what college could only lend them. In the classroom and lecture 
halls they listen to professors who have studied in foreign uni¬ 
versities and traveled in many countries. Distinguished men 
and women from all parts of the world come to the college to 
talk to the students. It is a busy, fascinating world. Receptions, 
concerts, and athletic contests add to the zest of it all. The im¬ 
pressive college buildings, the spacious, well-kept yards and 
beautiful trees—all belonging to the students for the time being 
—make them feel like dwellers in castles. But no dweller in 
Europe’s most imposing castle ever had the wealth of advan¬ 
tages that are today lavished on the poorest college student in 
the United States. 




WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


287 

20. Special Opportunities in Work Life for College Grad¬ 
uates. For many years college graduates will be needed in all 
the humble positions in mills, mines, lumber camps, and in other 



(QJ C J. P. Troy 

No prince ever had such wealth of advantages as the modern college 
student has 


"handwork” jobs. Some of the hopeless and discouraged ones 
of our nation are hidden away in these places. They are hope¬ 
less because there has been no one to point the right way to 
better homes and better work conditions. Those who have had 
the hilltop vision owe it to the hopeless ones to share it with 
them. Once store and office work was considered too lowly for 





288 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


college graduates. Now they have flooded stores and offices, 
beginning at the bottom and rising to responsible, well-paid 
positions. Since there are not enough of the so-called top 
positions to go around, even in the United States, the increasing 
number of college graduates means that at last there is hope 
that the bottom positions will be transformed by them—not in 
one decade, but slowly and surely as the years pass. 

College graduates have a way of finding special opportuni¬ 
ties wherever they go, whether in factories, stores, or offices. A 
study recently made of 15,142 eminent men of the United States 
showed that 

1. Of 10,000 prominent and successful men in all lines, 58 per cent 
were college graduates and 75 per cent had had some college training. 

2. Of the 100 wealthiest men, considered in proportion to the total 
number possessing or not possessing a college education, four times as 
many college men as non-college men amassed wealth. 

3. On the whole the college-bred man had attained eminence 8.7 
times as often in proportion to his numbers as the noncollege-bred man. 

21 . Schooldays need not end with Graduation from College. 

In the United States schooldays need not end even with gradu¬ 
ation from college. Any graduate can continue to study in his 
own college or in other colleges and institutions. This special 
study requires self-denial and the kind of long-distance ambi¬ 
tion that can wait for future years to win success. Some oppor¬ 
tunities for studying after graduation from college are suggested 
by the following list: 

1. Special graduate courses. In most universities there are special 
courses for college graduates who want to do advanced work. Often 
fellowships are awarded to promising young men and women so that they 
can study without having to meet the usual expenses. 

2. Traveling fellowships. Almost every American university now 
offers one or more traveling fellowships which are awarded to college 
graduates, according to merit, for the purpose of studying in some 
foreign country. Sometimes a fellowship is awarded for a definite 
period at a specified university, but often it is left to the student to 
decide in which country and at what universities he will study. 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 289 

3. Recently the American Field Service established twenty-five fel¬ 
lowships for French universities, the only requirements being that 

Candidates must be citizens of the United States, must be graduates of a 
college of recognized standing, or of a professional school requiring three years 
of study for a degree, or if not qualified in either of these ways, they must be 
twenty-four years of age and must have spent five years in work requiring 
technical skill. 

4. Rhodes scholarships. These are three-year scholarships at Oxford 
University, England, established by the celebrated Englishman, Cecil 
Rhodes. Two American students may be chosen from each state every 
three years, and each is paid $1500 a year, which is a more generous 
amount than is allowed by most scholarship funds. The requirements 
for these scholarships are (1) scholarship; (2) success in outdoor 
sports; (3) qualities of manhood (truth, courage, devotion to duty, 
sympathy for the weak) ; (4) qualities of leadership. 

5. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. This is a 
university established and supported by Americans to enable American 
students to study classical literature, art, and antiquities in Old World 
surroundings. The tuition is free to graduates of the colleges that con¬ 
tribute to its support and to other students approved by the committee. 
Students from over fifty American colleges have attended this school 
and now are teaching in more than forty different colleges, 

6. The American Academy at Rome. Like the similar school at 
Athens, this is open to holders of fellowships and to college graduates 
who have the necessary special qualifications. Art, architecture, and 
classical studies are the subjects in which the students are helped to do 
research work. Scholarships in this academy are given by different col¬ 
leges, museums, and societies, and the academy itself offers several. 
Those offered by the academy are for three years’ study and are known 
as the Prix de Rome. 

7. The American School of Oriental Research at Jerusalem. A school 
for advanced college students. Instruction is carried on by lectures, 
conferences, field trips, and more elaborate expeditions, in which the 
topography, antiquities, customs, language, and folklore of the country 
are studied. Special opportunities for the study of Arabic, Hebrew, 
English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Armenian, Greek, and 
Russian are afforded. The school itself offers one scholarship of $1000, 
open to college graduates and students of similar attainments. 

8. The American School of Oriental Research at Bagdad. This is 
similar to the school at Jerusalem, and is managed by the same group 
of American educators. 


290 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


9. The American-Scandinavian Foundation. This organization (with 
headquarters at 25 West 45th Street, New York City) has provided for 
the annual interchange of forty students between the universities of the 
United States and those of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Applica¬ 
tions with recommendations are made to the Foundation, and a jury 
of university professors and technical experts makes the selection of 
students. 

10. A special school at Havana. This is for Americans who wish to 
study the Spanish language and Latin-American conditions. 

11. A special school at Nanking , China. This is for Americans who 
wish to study the Chinese language, customs, and trade conditions. 

The Bureau of Education at Washington can always give one 
information about these schools and fellowships and also about 
every kind of opportunity for special study in this or a foreign 
country. A two-cent stamp and a definite, courteous letter of 
inquiry are all that is necessary to bring a person just the 
information he wants. 

22 . Who provides the Schools? As in everything else in the 
United States, the schools are partly an organized government 
affair and partly the result of private enterprise. When a new 
kind of school is needed a group of private citizens set to work 
at once to provide it. The first trade school for girls in the 
United States was the idea of several Boston women who started 
dressmaking and millinery classes in two rooms in a lodging- 
house. Soon the classes outgrew their quarters, and a whole 
floor was taken, and finally all the building. The school was not 
only successful but self-supporting. After several years the 
city of Boston took it over as one of its free public schools. 
It was a teacher in a settlement who first worked out a plan 
for helping pupils choose an occupation. Today many school 
departments have vocational advisers. Long before any public 
high school offered a commercial course there were private com¬ 
mercial schools. Now probably there is not a high school of 
any size in the country that does not teach some commercial 
branches. What is today an experimental school run by a few 
courageous individuals, tomorrow may be proudly claimed by 
the community as one of its free public schools. 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


291 


23 . What Local and State Government does. Every state 
now has a compulsory school-attendance law, but not all laws 
are equally good. Some states require only six months of school 
attendance, others excuse children in certain cases from regular 
school attendance, still others provide no means of enforcing the 
law. In one important respect, however, all states are agreed— 
that all children should have school privileges. 

It is first the state (by the passage of laws) and then the com¬ 
munity (by carrying out these laws) that has to do with the 
school. The community provides the money to build the school- 
house, keep it in repair, light and heat it, provide janitor serv¬ 
ice and teachers. The community also selects its principals, 
teachers, and superintendent. This is usually done through 
a school board (sometimes called trustees or school committee 
or board of education) which is either elected by the people or 
appointed by the mayor. School-board meetings are often open 
to the people so that the voters can know what their officials 
are doing. In general the community runs its schools as its 
citizens demand, so that sometimes adjoining towns, whose 
school bells are within sound of each other, will have schools 
which differ greatly in buildings, textbooks, and teachers. 

The state also has something to do with the running of the 
school besides making compulsory school-attendance laws. It 
requires towns having no high school to pay tuition for its 
young people in near-by towns and either to furnish transporta¬ 
tion or to pay for it. It does not select teachers, but it helps train 
them by providing free normal schools—in some states there is 
one for each county and one for each large city. Although the 
community usually pays its own school bills, some states pro¬ 
vide funds to help. When in one state it was recently found that 
the average salary of elementary school-teachers was less than 
a living wage, the legislature passed a law permitting a part of 
the income-tax revenue to be distributed to the towns and cities 
which were unable to pay proper salaries. The result was that 
teachers who had been getting less than $500 a year now were 
paid a minimum of $1000. 


292 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



The state has certain officials whose whole time is given 
to school matters. It has a department or bureau of education, 
the members of which are usually appointed by the governor for 
a specified term of years. This bureau has different powers in 
different states. If the legislature has voted a special fund to be 
distributed to the schools, under certain conditions, this state 
board has the distribution of this; as, for example, when money 


© Keystone View Co. 

Even when a college is supported by private funds it is protected from fire, 
burglary, and disease by local and state governments 

has been made available for special evening schools or for day 
continuation schools. In some states there is a state board of 
education which has a great deal of power; it oversees the 
examination of teachers, manages all normal schools, and em¬ 
ploys a large corps of agents who inspect schools and hold 
special teachers’ institutes. 

Many of the colleges and special schools are owned and 
managed by private corporations. Such world-famous institu¬ 
tions as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, were started by private citi¬ 
zens and are still owned and controlled by private corporations. 
Every college, however, has to receive from the state a charter 





WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


293 


stating what it purposes to do and how it is to be managed. If 
it fails to conform to the provisions of its charter the state can 
cancel it. Many of the nation’s greatest universities and other 
special schools are owned, controlled, and supported by the 
state. The University of Michigan, the University of Ohio, the 
Perkins Institute for the Blind, in Massachusetts, are illustra¬ 
tions of such state-owned schools. 

24. What the National Government does for the School. 
Ordinarily a pupil has little idea what the state does for him, 
and is even less likely to be made aware of what the national 
government does. Tucked away in one of the old government 
buildings at Washington—the building in which many an in¬ 
augural ball has taken place—is the Bureau of Education, one 
of the subdivisions of the Department of the Interior. Like 
many other bureaus at Washington, it is chiefly a gatherer and a 
distributor of helpful information, but it does one valuable 
piece of field work: it sends out trained workers to make edu¬ 
cational surveys for counties and cities. When a dispute arises 
between different groups in a community as to how efficient its 
schools are, both groups can turn to Washington to make an 
impartial investigation. Some bitter local disputes have been 
settled in this way. This bureau also has the task of allotting 
to the different states their share of the government funds 
set aside for the benefit of state colleges of agriculture. 

25. Federal Laws that have aided Schools. The Constitution 
does not mention schools or education, but Congress, because 
of the power granted it in the Constitution to " provide for the 
general welfare of the United States,” has done much to make 
the United States a nation of schools. The following are the 
most important laws affecting schools that have been passed 
by Congress: 

1. The Land Act of 17S5 provided for the survey of the Northwest 
Territory and set aside therein lot No. 16 in every township for "the 
maintenance of public schools within said township.’ 

2. The ordinance of 1787 declared that "schools and the means of 
education shall forever be encouraged.” 


294 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

3. In 1826 the section-grant provision was applied to the Louisiana 
Purchase. 

4. By the Land Act of 1848 sections 16 and 36 of the Oregon Terri¬ 
tory were set aside for the public schools. 

5. In 1818 the act admitting Illinois set aside the "5 per cent” 
funds for education. 

6. In 1863 the Morrill Act, providing for the establishment of the 
"land-grant colleges” in each state, was signed by President Lincoln. 

7. The Hatch Act (1887) gave each state $15,000 for an agricultural 
experiment station to be connected with the agricultural college. 

8. The second Morrill Act, passed in 1890, gave $25,000 a year to 
each land-grant college. This was later increased to $80,000 a year. 

9. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 gave further increases for exten¬ 
sion work and farmers’ institutes. 

10. The Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, providing for assistance to the 
states for the promotion of vocational education, gives a total maxi¬ 
mum appropriation from the national government annually of $7,200,000. 

26 . Some "National” Schools. The national government not 
only aids education in many ways but actually conducts certain 
schools. It teaches young men how to be army officers at West 
Point and naval officers at Annapolis, and has special schools at 
various forts and on special ships. After the World War, and 
while our troops were still in France, the War Department con¬ 
ducted a regular university for about forty thousand soldiers. 
In Alaska and our island possessions the native schools are 
under the control of Washington. At times even our soldiers 
and naval officers have been teachers. During the years that 
the non-Christian parts of certain provinces in the Philippines 
were under military forces, the army organized primary schools 
to teach Arabic and English, and our soldiers became the 
teachers. 

27 . What Private Individuals do for the Schools. Although 
public schools are supported by the community through legal 
assessments, many a school building and many a useful or 
ornamental article has been the gift of an individual. In Chazy, 
New York State, the consolidated-school building, which is 
equipped for agricultural and industrial training, physical 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


295 


training, recreation, health inspection, and dental care, was 
given by a wealthy resident. In Cordova, Alabama, a graded 
school was built, equipped, and partly supported by the local 
cotton mill, in which most of the men and many of the women 
work. The mill also supports a day nursery, with fireplace, 
screened porches, bathroom, kitchen, and laundry appliances, 
in which mothers who work in the mill leave their children. In 
another section of Alabama an iron company gave to the 
county for a consolidated high school forty acres of land, in¬ 
cluding a dwelling suitable for a teacher’s home, and a barn 
useful for vocational classes. Mine owners in still another 
county gave $15,000 of the $40,000 required to build an up-to- 
date schoolhouse, and contributed to the support of the teach¬ 
ers’ salaries. The high-school building in Kingsville, Texas, 
and a magnificent adjoining park were the gifts of a private 
citizen, as was also six hundred and forty acres of the land 
used by the Texas-Mexican Industrial Institute in the same 
neighborhood. Most of the school buildings in Chicago have 
on their walls paintings or prints purchased by the Public 
School Art Society or given by interested persons; a Chicago 
physician for many years gave money to provide textbooks for 
all pupils who could not afford to buy them. 

Some of the most valuable assistance, however, has been 
that of service, not of money. Jacob Riis, a private citizen, one 
year determined to find out how many children in New York 
City who ought to have been in school were drifting about the 
streets. He made a study of two wards and then estimated 
the result for the whole city to be 50,000. Officials would not 
believe this, and ordered a school census made, which showed 
50,069 children on the street or at home. The result was 
more schoolhouses and more officials to enforce the school- 
attendance laws. The Rotary Club of Springfield, Missouri, one 
year pledged each member to "put back in school at least one 
boy.” A woman in a New York town by working early and late 
for several years compelled the people to vote enough money to 
support a high school. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



296 

28. What Private Organizations do for the School. Much 
of the most valuable service is done by private organizations. 
For school subjects like mathematics and history there is an 
association of teachers and educators which meets regularly to 
discuss how these subjects can best be taught. Each association 
appoints a committee to study the subject carefully and then 


^ Keystone View Co. 

Furnishing school lunches for underfed children is one of the services that pri¬ 
vate organizations first showed the need of. In New York City many children 
are given a nourishing breakfast by the Salvation Army 

advise what should be done. Whether American history shall be 
studied in high school, how much time shall be given to ancient 
history, are only a few of the matters which these associations 
investigate. When this report is made and accepted, the as¬ 
sociation cannot force any state, city, or town to adopt its sug¬ 
gestions. But as a matter of fact boards of education usually 
follow the recommendations of these associations, especially in 
history, arithmetic, and English. In some states every high 
school plans its college preparatory course according to the 
rulings of the College Entrance Examination Board. 




WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


297 


29. Another Way that Individuals have helped make Modern 
Schools Possible. If it were not for the faithful work of men 
and women of many countries, some of whom lived and died 
long ago, there would be no modern textbooks. The information 
stowed away between the covers of textbooks has been gath¬ 
ered bit by bit through a long period of years, in some cases 
through centuries, and then has been arranged and simplified 
by expert textbook-makers. Often a single page of a textbook 
represents years of search. The Oxford Dictionary, which is 
on the shelves of most public libraries, was begun in 1879 and 
not completed in 1922. Henry Adams, an American author and 
scholar, gave up eight years of his life to the writing of the 
history of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, which 
was published in nine volumes as the "History of the United 
States from 1801 to 1817.” The pupils in school and the ordi¬ 
nary reader probably have never even heard of these books of 
Adams’s; but the authors of the American history textbooks 
which pupils study turned to these and other similar books for 
facts that they could not otherwise get without spending weeks 
and months of time searching scattered records as Adams did 
for many years. 

Thanks to such patient research workers pupils do not them¬ 
selves have to hunt for the facts of history or geography; 
neither do they have to work out the rules of grammar before 
they can translate a foreign language, nor compile laws of 
mathematics, physics, or chemistry before they can solve the 
problems. A boy may grumble at the perplexing rules of Latin 
grammar, but if the school placed in his hands only the Latin 
text of Caesar’s wars and left it to him to figure out the rules 
of the ablative absolute etc., there would be no time to study 
anything else. 

30. The Research Workers of the Future. Who are the men 
and women who even now are "discovering” or preparing 
themselves to "discover” facts of history and new truths in 
regard to chemistry, winds, gas motors, electric storms, ways 
of using the heat of the sun or the power of the tides? There 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


298 



is a little army of these men and women of whom the world 
seldom hears. They are the enterprising students who, after 
graduating from college or a technical institute, continue to 
study out what is not yet found in any textbook. Their life is 
a school. It is they who make it possible for a nation to take 
a step forward once or twice in a century. They are the 
thinkers-out for the rest of the people. The first step in the 

preparation for their 
difficult work was 
taken when they were 
in the grammar school, 
where, by means of 
arithmetic, algebra, ge¬ 
ometry, they learned 
how to study a prob¬ 
lem through unaided. 
No country ever has 
enough of these search¬ 
ers and thinkers-out. 
There are more mis¬ 
laid facts of history 
than there are search¬ 
ers. There are more 
It is the world’s patient research workers that problems waiting to be 
make schools possible solved than there are 

problem workers. 

31 . Illiteracy in a Nation of Schools. With the town, state, 
and nation standing back of the public school, and with the 
aid of so great a number of organizations and private indi¬ 
viduals, America seems as much the home of the schoolhouse 
as it is the home of the job. But unfortunately there is an¬ 
other side to the picture. The Americans who read the fol¬ 
lowing incident, related by an American traveler in Africa, 
probably smiled and were thankful that they lived in a coun¬ 
try of free schoolhouses and free public libraries, where no 
one was so strangely ignorant as this African mother: 



WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


299 


"They say we live in Africa,” said Mejo. 

"Who says so?” asked his mother. 

"The teacher says so,” said Mejo. 

"Well, I don’t believe it. I, who have lived in this 
forest always, did I ever hear that we lived in Africa? 
What the old and the wise of the tribe never knew, 
how can the white man know it, who is a stranger of 
yesterday ? ” 

Yet there are many persons in the United States today who do 
not know the name of the nation in which they live nor of the 
state in which they pay taxes. In a large New England city, on 
the opening night of the evening-school session, a girl sixteen 
years old could not tell either the name of the state in which 
she lived or the name of the country from which she had come. 
When asked what the United States was she shook her head in 
embarrassment, although she had been a worker in one of our 
mills for several years. 

In every part of the United States there are illiterate men, 
women, and children. In a recent year the number of such per¬ 
sons was equal to the total population of Greece and only a little 
less than that of Belgium. During the World War one of the 
officers at Camp Lee was at his desk one morning when the 
private who had been detailed as his orderly came in, saluted, 
and waited for instructions. The officer returned the salute, 
saying, "You’ll find your instructions on that board.” But the 
young man waited uneasily, growing red and embarrassed. "I 
can’t read, sir,” he stammered. The officer was silent with 
amazement, for the young man before him was six feet, alert, 
and clear-eyed. The next day, on investigation, he found that 
scores of young men in the camp could neither read nor write. 
The same condition was being discovered in the other military 
camps. General Pershing later reported that 30 per cent of the 
men examined for the army in 1917-1918 were illiterate. In 
this 30 per cent were men from every state. 

32 . The Reason for Illiteracy. A nation of illiterates within 
a nation of free schoolhouses and free libraries! How came il- 


3oo 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


literacy and ignorance to be hiding in even the most isolated 
corner of the nation? How has it come to pass that there are 
still not enough schools to reach all the people ? How was it that 
in one of our largest cities a teacher could report to an investi¬ 
gating committee that "classes were being taught on the stairs, 
that children in overcoats had to use the front steps as a study 
room, and that there were seven hundred more children in the 
school than could be taken care of”? Schools cost money; but 
we are the richest nation on earth and have money enough to 
give every child born in the country or admitted into it from 
foreign countries a common-school education, a high-school ed¬ 
ucation, and even four years in a college. We have the money, 
and we believe that the strength of the nation lies in the school; 
then how can any person go schoolless ? 

There are several reasons for illiteracy in the United States: 

1. Although the state law may require communities to provide schools, 
not all laws provide a penalty for failure to do this. Therefore, if the 
people of any community are un-American enough not to fulfill the law, 
the state is helpless. 

2. Some families may be too far away to reach the schools easily. 
The family that lives on a mountain side often cannot afford the use of 
a horse to drive the children to school every day. In some sections, dur¬ 
ing certain months, roads are so poor that they are impassable for any 
kind of wagon or automobile. Until all states mend their roads and 
have an adequate "school transportation” law, some families will not 
send their children to school. 

3. Even in communities where there are enough schoolhouses con¬ 
veniently located to reach all the families, and where there are enough 
truant officers to enforce the law, these officers do not always do their 
full duty. One negligent truant officer may mean many illiterate citizens 
ten years later. 

4. Strange to say, even if there are no negligent truant officers, there 
are fathers and mothers who will deceive such officers in order to keep 
their children in factories or stores. Often the most diligent truant 
officer is helpless in the face of their deceit. 

5. Even if a town sees to it that every boy and girl under sixteen 
years of age goes to school as the law requires, illiteracy may exist be¬ 
cause of the men and women who for some reason did not go to school 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


301 

in their earlier years. Perhaps the state in which they lived when young 
did not have a compulsory school-attendance law or perhaps they were 
born in foreign countries where there were few schools and no truant 
officers. A few states, but not many, require illiterate adults to attend 
special evening-school classes. No state has yet worked out a plan which 
reaches every illiterate mother and every illiterate father. This is one 



.brown bros. 


Evening schools are no longer rare. Every city and most large towns have 
evening grammar-school and high-school classes 


of the problems that may have to wait for the young people now in 
school to solve when they are voters and lawmakers. 

6. Most people dread a high tax rate. The more schools, the higher 
their taxes. This feeling about a high tax rate is often due to selfishness, 
but often to an ignorance as dangerous as that which the schools try 
to overcome. Men who have had no experience with illiteracy do not 
know enough to fear it. 

7. The final and key reason for illiteracy is that many people still feel 
that it is only the business of town and city officers, school boards, and 
school-teachers to see that everybody reaps the benefit of the schools. 
This is as harmful as the pocketbook attitude. The officers whom we 




302 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


elect to do certain things often do these only as well as we demand. A 
school board may shirk for one year, but if it shirks for a second year it 
is the fault of the voters. It is the business of every person to know 
whether any child or adult of his town is deprived of school privileges. 
When he knows the facts, then he must start the ball rolling that will 
finally remedy what is wrong. If the United States were not a democ¬ 
racy, then there would be some excuse for a person to say that it was 
"none of his business.” That can never be true in this country. 

33. How Illiteracy can be Wiped Out. Already there are 
many agencies working diligently to wipe out illiteracy. The 
most important of these are 

1. National and state child-labor associations. These investigate 
homes and industries to find out whether children ought to be in school 
or at work. They report cases to the school authorities and publish 
their findings so that all the people may know what is taking place. 

2. Factory owners who have voluntarily started classes in their fac¬ 
tories and allow employees to attend a certain number of hours a week 
without loss of pay. 

3. Americanization organizations that open special classes for for¬ 
eigners when towns and cities have none. 

4. Newspapers which publish the facts about child labor and the 
dangers of illiteracy. 

Each person can help in some one or all of these ways: 

1. Joining the national or a state child-labor association. 

2. Getting accurate information about illiteracy in his state and 
community and telling others about this. 

3. Sending carefully compiled information to the local paper. 

4. Joining some local organization, or forming one, that will study 
conditions in the community and start "doing” something. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter as a whole, then make a simple outline to keep 
in mind while studying it by sections. 

2 . Read Art. I, Sect. 8, paragraph 1, of the Federal Constitution to 
find the statement which gives Congress authority to make laws affecting 
the public schools. Read your state constitution to learn exactly what 
is provided there, then find out what are the most important school 
laws passed by your state legislature. 


WHERE YOUTH DWELLS 


303 


3. Turn to the list of your state, county, and community officials 
compiled for earlier chapters, and make a smaller list of the officials 
directly or indirectly related to the schools. Show in each case what 
their connection is. 

4. Define education without using the word "school,” and make 
your definition show that education is never completed. 

5. America is said to have more young-looking old men than any 
other country. Can you explain this ? 

6. Re-read sections 6-8 in Chapter III and discuss these in connec¬ 
tion with school training. 

7 . In the text we have given more attention to early and late suc¬ 
cess, but many persons reach their truest success in middle life. Think 
of several prominent persons of whom this was true. 

8. As you learned in earlier chapters, the schools are a part of home 
life and work life and help prepare for both. Take each one of your 
present studies and show how it helps you now in your home and in your 
work or will help you in the future. 

9 . Show how the oral English work, the letter-writing, and the de¬ 
bates of your English course will help you in your dealings with other 
people. 

10. Discuss the "minimum essentials” of an education. Do you think 
any study not mentioned in the text is equally important ? 

11. Explain and illustrate this statement: "Part of the purpose of 
education is to make it possible for a person to get out of isolation.” 

12. Assume that you were the college student referred to on page 282, 
and be prepared to give a "defense of the flag” before the class. Be 
prepared with facts, not mere high-sounding praise of the flag. 

13. Many failures in life are due to inability to think a thing through. 
Think of a number of conditions in which a person would face failure 
if he lacked this ability. What other studies besides mathematics help 
cultivate this ability? 

14. Prepare for your teacher a written composition on "Why I am 
(or am not) going to college.” 

15. If you have decided what occupation you will enter when you 
have finished school, find out what higher schools or colleges could best 
help you prepare for this. 

16. Show how college helps even more than the high school to get 
out of isolation. Do you think it is more or less important for persons 


304 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

who must live in small villages or rural sections to have a college 
education ? Why ? 

17 . How does school life prepare for leadership ? for intelligent fol¬ 
lowing? Take each of your studies and each of your present school 
activities, and show in what ways these are helping prepare for leading 
and for following. 

18 . What scholarships are offered in your state in colleges and special 
schools ? Send for the catalogue of the college that most interests you. 
even if you know you cannot study there. Mark out the course you 
would like to take. Watch the newspapers for items about this college. 
Make it your college in interest even if you cannot attend it. 

19 . What is illiteracy? How does your state rank in this respect? 
Are there schools enough in your community for everyone who needs 
school training? If not, where does the blame lie? How could this be 
changed ? 

20 . Often the people of the community know little about the schools. 
The pupils themselves can help change this with the help of the teachers. 
Organize the class into committees with a view to covering school news 
for the local newspaper. Let one of these committees interview the 
editor, telling him that once a week your class will send him one or two 
typewritten sheets of school news which you hope he will publish. Per¬ 
sonal items should be omitted, but items about the school or classes as a 
whole, about the special music work, the new books just received, the 
needs of the school library, the number of pupils who have desks that do 
not fit, the recess games, etc., can be sent. 

21 . Turn to Chapter VI and to your notebook outlines of community 
activities and show how the school is directly or indirectly related to 
each of these. 

22 . Recently Los Angeles voted $17,400,000 to improve its schools. 
But this money was not voted until the people unofficially had made a 
long, hard campaign to bring this about. Posters, letters, lectures, house- 
to-house interviews, were used to accomplish this. Plan an imaginary 
campaign for your community. 

23 . What have private organizations and individuals done for the 
schools of your community? 

24 . What schools besides the public schools does your community 
have? Get as much information as possible about them. 


CHAPTER XIII 

LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 

1. Work Life brings New Needs. There are many things that 
school cannot teach, simply because no one can tell in advance 
what even a small part of a person’s needs will be. All that the 
school and college can do is to give young people the kind of 
start that will enable them to study and work by themselves. 
For the young person to leave school before he has learned how 
to study, how to get information independently of both teachers 
and fellow students, is to be badly handicapped from the first. 
When Theodore Vail became a railway mail clerk he found 
that he needed to know what school had not taught him. Since 
there was no textbook that fitted his requirements, he studied 
the territory for which he handled mail, then made a map show¬ 
ing the location of all the post offices, the points at which the 
different railroad lines crossed or met his line, marking on the 
margin of the map the schedules of the trains with which his 
connected. By the help of this map he was soon able to get his 
mail to its destination more quickly and regularly than any of 
the other lines. After a while the Federal post-office authorities 
heard of this wide-awake mail clerk and summoned him to a 
position in Washington. It was no wonder, then, that he later 
became president of one of the largest organizations in the 
United States—the Western Union Telegraph Company. 

When during the World War England was in danger of 
starvation because of the difficulty of getting food supplies 
quickly enough, a man was needed as "surveyor-general of sup¬ 
plies” who knew where the world’s food supplies were and how 
to transport these by the shortest routes. The person chosen 
for this great task was Andrew Weir, who controlled the largest 
fleet of sailing vessels in the world. Weir left school at fifteen 

3°5 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


306 

to work in a bank, but evenings and Sundays he studied ships 
and harbors and distant islands, searched encyclopedias, books 
of travel, government reports, and talked with everyone who 
he thought might have a scrap of information to give him. When 
he was twenty he owned his first ship! It was the years of 



Much of every person’s education must be gained after schooldays. What 
this factory worker learns about his work will determine how high he will 
climb in the ladder of success 


study by himself, added to the start obtained in school, that 
made it possible for him to help save England in her days of 
greatest need. 

2. Getting Information from Books, Periodicals, and People. 

Both inside and outside of school the two chief ways of getting 
information are from books and periodicals and from people. 
To get information from books is not always as simple as it 
seems in school, for the teachers usually assign definite subjects 





LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 307 

and lists of books to consult. Outside of school this kind of 
help is not always available. One reason that towns are begin¬ 
ning to place libraries in school buildings is not merely to save 
the time of pupils and teachers, but to make it easy for pupils 
to learn how to select from a large collection of books those 
which will give the information wanted. This is the minimum 
list of things that a person should know about the use of books: 

1. How to use a library card-index. 

2. How to use the table of contents and index of a book. 

3. How to distinguish between the title of a book and the subject 
of a book. 

4. How to get one bit of information from one book and related facts 
from another. 

5. How to find out whether an author is trustworthy. 

In addition to knowing how to get from books the help 
needed, a person will also need to learn how to use newspapers 
and magazines. Sometimes merely because a subject can be set 
down between the two covers of a book, it has an air of comple¬ 
tion or finality, but every subject needs to be supplemented by 
the accounts of what is happening today. One day’s news dis¬ 
patches from Egypt reported that relics more than four thou¬ 
sand years old had been found in one of the cliff tombs of 
Thebes. These relics consisted of a large number of toy figures 
of men, women, children, and animals, arranged to show scenes 
from the life of that far-off time. Here were whole new pages 
to add to the textbook of ancient history. Recently the news¬ 
papers announced the discovery of documents which formed 
the official records of the fourth Fremont expedition to the 
Pacific coast. These papers, which had been lost for more 
than half a century, were of interest to every student, for they 
included much material about pioneer life, the organization of 
the express for carrying news, and the various routes across the 
continental divide. The facts of geography change as do those 
of history. One day’s newspaper, for instance, announced that 
in Chile, as the result of a violent earthquake and volcanic erup¬ 
tion, "fifteen mountains had dropped a sufficient distance to 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


308 

disclose peaks that had formerly been hidden from sight,” and 
that the " river Turbio, five miles long, had completely disap¬ 
peared, leaving a dry canyon.” 

The newspaper that the student reads should be one that 
will fit the description given by a noted Frenchman of the ideal 
American newspaper: 

... a compendious picture first of their own city, next of 
their state, then of all the states of the Union, and finally 
of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It is also a daily 
encyclopedia, set to the key of the passing moment, which 
is already past. 

The reading of the right kind of dependable magazine is 
also an important part of one’s education. What the newspaper 
of necessity records hastily and briefly, the magazine relates 
more at length, although much that is important is never 
repeated in the magazines. The best modern magazines are a 
supplementary textbook of history, civics, economics, sociology, 
and literature. 

3 . The Notebook and the File. Aimless reading is of little 
value. The ambitious person will be equipped with a notebook 
for jotting down memoranda of news, with the date, the name 
of the paper, and the name of the writer, if this is given. When 
practicable the item or article should be cut out and either 
pasted into a scrapbook or filed where it can be quickly con¬ 
sulted. News must be arranged according to subjects. Dates 
should always be given carefully. When only a brief newspaper 
item is found, this should be filed away, but the student should 
enter a memorandum in his notebook and search later issues of 
the magazines and newspapers for additional news on the same 
subject. 

4 . Getting Information and Help from People. Some of our 
greatest help will come from people. Youthful days are listen¬ 
ing days. A celebrated Norwegian once said that no man had 
finished his schooling until he had learned to be silent. He was 
not referring to empty silence, but the silence of listening 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 309 

and thinking. The head of a big business talks less than most 
of his assistants and employees. He listens and observes. When 
an employee of the Department of Commerce was asked why 
he had so much confidence in his chief, Herbert Hoover, he said, 
" Because he does so much listening.” Many of the men and 
women who have a big 
fund of* valuable in¬ 
formation never write 
out their experiences. 

Therefore the only way 
that one can learn from 
them is through con¬ 
versation. Often what 
the teacher or professor 
says in the classroom 
is more valuable to the 
student than the pages 
of his textbook. 

5 . Learning by Asso¬ 
ciating with those who 
are Older and Wiser. 

When a successful man 
was once asked what 
he would do if he 
were twenty-one again, 

© Mary H. Northend 

among other things he Everyone should have 

a corner where he can 

said : " If I were twenty- keep his books, papers, and other equipment 
one again I would have 

two or three choice friends among the older people. They know 
the way. They have learned the meaning of life. They can be 
depended upon in the hours of emergency.” George Washington 
had fewer opportunities than his brother Lawrence, who was 
sent to England to study, but he did not neglect the one special 
opportunity that came his way. Lord Fairfax, a cultured Eng¬ 
lishman who had traveled much, bought an estate near Wash¬ 
ington’s boyhood home. And George was a reader of Lord 






3io 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Fairfax’s books and a listener to the conversation of the dining¬ 
room and drawing-room. Mark Twain, whose schooldays ended 
with his twelfth year, once had this advice given him by Anson 
Burlingame, our first minister to China: "What you need now 
is the refinement of association. Seek companionship of superior 
intellect and character.” Burlingame merely meant, "Seek the 
companionship of the best, for that companionship is in itself 
an education.” What happened many years later, when Twain 
went to England to receive an honorary degree from Oxford Uni¬ 
versity, shows how well he had followed the advice given him: 

England never gave a more splendid welcome to any 
private citizen. . . . He was received with special favor 
at the king’s garden party; he traveled by a royal train. 

At Oxford, when he showed himself in the street, the name 
Mark Twain ran up and down like a cry of fire, and the 
people came running. When he appeared on the stage of 
the theater to receive his degree . . . there developed sud¬ 
denly what the English papers referred to as a cyclone. 1 

Association with persons of education will partly make up 
for lack of opportunity. When Levi P. Morton, at one time 
vice president of the United States, was a young man, a college 
education was not within his reach, but he secured a position in 
a store in the town where Dartmouth College is situated in order 
to get the benefit of association with the students. 

6. Getting from Others means Giving to Others. Associat¬ 
ing with men and women of attainment brings responsibilities. 
Mark Twain, when he followed Burlingame’s advice and made 
friends with his superiors, was able to give as well as receive. 
He had had a boyhood full of the kind of experiences that older 
men never weary of hearing about, which he could share with 
them. George Washington probably gave Lord Fairfax many 
hours of genuine enjoyment by describing the hills and forests 
which he was surveying. But the most important return that 
one can make for the friendship of an older person is to hitch 

1 Reprinted from Albert Bigelow Paine’s "Short Life of Mark Twain,” by- 
permission of Harper and Brothers, publishers. 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 311 

his wagon to a star. Older people have many discouragements. 
Even those who are most envied for their success have times 
when their work seems useless and they look forward without 
eagerness to the coming years. At such times one thing that is 
always helpful is the sight of ambitious young people. Every 
hard thing a young person does successfully, every effort he 
makes to climb a little higher, is a help to them. 

7 . Meeting the Right People. Sometimes the difficulty is 
not in finding ways to meet the right people but in deciding who 
are the persons worth admiring and following. In New York 
City one November morning there was brought into court a 
boy of high-school age whom the judge described as follows: 

In one hand the boy held a shiny new tarpaulin bag, and 
in the other clutched a soft hat of vivid green. Both hands 
were incased in white kid gloves ornamented with black 
stitching on the back. The suit which he wore outdid in 
cut even those "good form” models of the modern adver¬ 
tisement, while a gaudy tie and striped silk shirt and but¬ 
toned leather shoes completed a picture which would have 
been amusing had it not been so pathetic. 1 

He had been brought to the court from the railroad station, 
where he had asked for a ticket for Palm Beach. The ticket 
agent, thinking something was wrong, turned the young traveler 
over to a detective, and in a few hours the boy was telling the 
judge that he had started for Palm Beach because he wanted to 
know " the proper kind of people. ” There were none of the right 
kind in his little home town, he thought. The desire of this boy 
was to associate with those who were more admirable than him¬ 
self, but he had chosen the wrong way to bring this to pass. 

8. Meeting Distinguished People Face to Face. One can 
meet the distinguished persons of the present in two ways: 
(1) through the newspapers, magazines, and motion pictures, 
and (2) at receptions, dinners, and public lectures. The advice 
once given a diffident young woman was invaluable: 

1 Reprinted from Franklin Chase Hoyt’s " Quicksands of Youth,” by per¬ 
mission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 


312 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Even if your only chance of meeting a distinguished 
person is to attend a formal reception, standing in line until 
your knees quake in embarrassment, and finally reaching 
the celebrity only to shake hands hastily and be pushed on 
to make room for the next, don’t miss that handshake and 
the face-to-face impression that the opportunity affords. 
After several such experiences your knees will cease to 
quake, and you will get something out of the handshake, 
the sound of the voice, and the glance of the eye that will 
be a real help. 

Carlyle once advised a young man to pray daily to be brought 
face to face with the great men of the age. One’s motive should 
always be to get a true impression of the power and personality 
of the celebrity, not merely to see him. 

9 . Meeting Distinguished People through Books. The dis¬ 
tinguished persons of the past anyone can associate with through 
books. Students find the pages of ancient and modern history 
discouragingly full of names of men and women like Charle¬ 
magne, Napoleon Bonaparte, Gambetta, Garibaldi, Joan of 
Arc, Holbein, Carlyle. The days are not long enough to get inti¬ 
mately acquainted with these important people, for each week’s 
lessons carry the student into new periods with new names. 
It is necessary to get these big, sweeping views of the world’s 
history and literature and of the actors in these worlds. But in 
addition to distant views, every person needs a "close up” of at 
least one great statesman, one great author, one leader of 
the people. 

Select from your history and your literature a character 
that particularly interests you, and begin to make a special 
study of that person. The study should extend over many years, 
but make your beginning at once. Buy for your own personal 
library the best books about this person; keep copies of the 
magazine articles and comments about him; secure prints of his 
portrait and statues. Learn all that you can about his friends, 
his ambitions, his disappointments. When ex-President Eliot of 
Harvard University said that "fifteen minutes a day devoted 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 313 



affectionately to good books will in thirty years make all the 
difference between a cultivated man and an uncultivated man,” 
he had in mind not "any book,” but the books written by and 
about the great men and women of the past and the present. 

10 . Learning through 
Doing. We have said 
that the two chief ways 
of getting information 
are from books and 
periodicals and from 
people. But education 
consists of something 
more than mere infor¬ 
mation gathering. One 
learns not only by read¬ 
ing and listening but 
also by doing. That is 
why so many schools 
not only teach pupils 
facts about things, but 
actually set them to 
doing things. After 
school years much of 
one’s learning will be 
through doing. How 
valuable a part of a 
person’s education can 
be secured in this way 
is illustrated by the 
career of a successful 
hydraulic engineer. Most young people leaving college look 
first for the largest possible salary, but this young man threw 
away every consideration except that of working on big under¬ 
takings under experts. He secured humble positions, with small 
pay, on the Bergen tunnel of the Brooklyn Waterworks; on 
water-power measurements at Cohoes, New York; on measure- 


Booth Tarkington, one of America’s celebrities 
whom young people may have the opportunity 
to meet 







3i4 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


ments and construction of mills at Lowell, Massachusetts; on 
the drainage of swamps; on the building of the Hoosac Tunnel; 
and on the construction of a dam. It was not what he learned 
in school that made him a nationally known expert, but what 
he added to this school knowledge after school years. Educa¬ 
tion is a never-ending process of studying, listening, and doing. 

11. The Kind of After-School Helps that the Community 
Offers. The special kinds of assistance which different com¬ 
munities provide in after-school education are obtained through 
such means as these: 

1. Churches 3. Museums 5. Lectures 

2. Libraries 4. Open forums 6. Theaters 

Not all communities offer all these means of studying and 
learning after schooldays are over, but there are few persons 
in the United States who do not have access to church, books, 
and lectures of some kind. 

12. The Church a Means of Education. Although many per¬ 
sons have not realized it, the church has been almost as impor¬ 
tant a center of learning as the schoolhouse. Often the only 
college-educated person in a small community is the clergyman, 
and even those clergymen who have had no college training 
have had a wider experience than most of the people of the 
community, and can share it with them. 

The church is a part of a national and sometimes of an in¬ 
ternational organization, and returned missionaries, reform 
lecturers, and educators will from time to time visit the com¬ 
munity and talk in the church. This link with the outside 
world is an important one. Even if such visitors are rare, the 
church paper brings news that broadens a person’s outlook. 

There is still another way in which the church furnishes op¬ 
portunity for education. No person’s training is complete until 
he learns something of the art of the world. Many churches are 
much like museums containing examples of all the arts—music, 
stained-glass windows, woodcarving, paintings, sculpture, lit¬ 
erature. In even the humblest churches the music that the 



LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 315 

organist plays was written by some of the world’s great com¬ 
posers, many of the hymns that the congregation sings are 
poems that will never die, and in those churches in which the 
Bible is made the center of all religious teaching the people 
are readers of one of the world’s greatest literary masterpieces. 


Few churches have such grandeur as the cathedral pictured here, but in even 
the most modest buildings one can learn much that is invaluable 

13 . What the Library stands for. The library is the univer¬ 
sity for all the people all the time. The following sentences are 
copied from the diary of a New England boy who in 1849 
joined the gold rush to California: 

Oct. 26, 1851. . . . Pard went to Frisco early in the 
week to be gone a fortnight, and I am laying off and hav¬ 
ing a lazy time until he comes back. We bought a lot of 
books along during the summer, and some pretty solid 
ones, among them a set of Chambers’s Encyclopedia of 
English Literature. 

This boy and an older man had staked a claim in the moun¬ 
tains miles away from town and the comforts of life. Many a 
week the boy’s share of the findings was nearly a thousand 






COMMUNITY CIVICS 


316 

dollars. But in spite of the hunger for gold that drew him to 
this wild country and kept him there, he was not satisfied. It 
was the hunger for knowledge that made him turn from his 
gold-digging to his books. It is this hunger that home book¬ 
shelves and public libraries help to satisfy. 

14 . The Public Library is the Poor Man’s Private Library. 
Poverty has many advantages. Not the least of these is that it 
sends its ambitious victims to the library to spend their leisure 
hours. Although Napoleon will always be known to history as 
the great "doer,” the man of action, the library was his favorite 
haunt in his schooldays at Brienne, France. And when he was a 
private in the army, and there was no school library at hand, 
he made his own library. "Do you know how I managed it?” 
he once asked. "It was by never setting foot inside a cafe or 
appearing in the social world. It was by eating dry bread. . . . 
I lived like a bear. . . . When by dint of abstinence I amassed 
the sum of twelve lire, I turned my steps with the joy of a 
child toward the shop of a bookseller.” 

15 . Like the School the Library goes to the People. Once it 
was left to the people to find their way to the library. Now the 
library seeks out the people who need it. The fact that a place 
like Chicago has more than a hundred libraries means that as 
the city has grown, the library, by establishing branches with 
reference books, periodicals, and fiction, has gone to the people. 
Especially is the library more and more going to the foreign- 
born people. A Russian girl who hated New York for its 
"palaces and slums” loved it for its public library, and said, 
"It was there that I found my coveted America; it was there 
that I gained freedom and equality.” 

There are thousands of immigrant men and women who can¬ 
not read English, therefore public libraries have special collec¬ 
tions of books in foreign languages and provide foreign-language 
newspapers. One of the branches of the New York City public 
library has an entire floor devoted to Bohemian books and 
music, with a Bohemian librarian, and a committee of Bohe¬ 
mians who help select the books. Some libraries use special 



LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 317 

means of attracting the foreigners. An interesting method was 
that adopted by the Portland, Oregon, public library, which 
each month secured a list of the men who had taken out their 
first citizenship papers and sent each of them a personal 
letter, giving the exact location of the library and explaining 


One of the branch libraries of a large city where the children wait in line for 
their turn to get a new book. (Courtesy of the Boston Transcript) 

about its books and periodicals in foreign languages. In many 
towns and cities the library has become a true community cen¬ 
ter to the foreign-born. In one community a group of Poles 
secured the use of the library basement Friday evenings in 
order to study English. A Pennsylvania library in its foreign 
section had among its clubs the Slovak-America Literary Club, 
the Hungarian Self-Culture Society, the Polish Citizens’ Club, 
and the Greek-Catholic Dramatic Club. 

There is another special way in which the library goes to 
the people, not all the people, but to special groups — those who 
























COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3i8 

are afflicted with blindness. According to a list issued by the 
American Library Association there are more than seventy 
institutions having special libraries for the blind which in most 
cases will send their books printed in Braille —the special type 
for the blind—to responsible applicants. A list of these can 
be obtained from the Library of Congress at Washington. The 
Library of Congress also maintains a special department for 
the blind, from which any free library may borrow books for 
use in its community. Moreover, it is equipped to give in¬ 
struction to persons who will volunteer to copy sheets of 
Braille (to be bound together to make books). Because of 
the great interest in the men who were blinded in the war, 
nearly fifteen thousand pages of Braille, which made three 
hundred and fourteen volumes, were prepared in one year by 
volunteer workers in different parts of the country. 

16 . Free Public Libraries are permitted, not required, by 
Law. Many states have officially encouraged the establish¬ 
ment of public libraries by passing some such law as that of 
Wisconsin, which provides that 

The common council of every city of the second, third, 
and fourth classes, and the board of trustees of every vil¬ 
lage may establish, equip, and maintain a public library 
established therein, and may annually levy and cause to 
be collected as other general taxes are collected a tax upon 
the taxable property, etc. 

Those who framed the Wisconsin law realized that many people 
live far from town and city centers. So the provision was in¬ 
cluded that any county, through its board of supervisors, could 
appoint a board of librarians whose duty it should be to equip 
a county traveling library, by means of which, as needed or as 
requested, books would be sent to schools and to other central 
places within reach of scattered districts. 

Kansas has a county library law which makes it possible to 
establish branch stations in schools, churches, or other central 
places in the county, the books being distributed to these sta- 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 319 



tions every week by automobile. Other states have equally 
good library laws, but none is better adapted to the needs of 
the people than these. 

17 . Paying for the Public Library. Most states set a legal 
limit to the amount that can be spent in any one year for 
library purposes. For 
instance, in one state 
only half a mill on 'the 
dollar can be appropri¬ 
ated for library expenses. 

This means that one 
town of five thousand in¬ 
habitants has each year 
only about $1500 to 
spend for heat, light, re¬ 
pairs, insurance, janitor, 
new books, magazines, 
librarian. One of two 
things must be done in 
a case like this: the peo¬ 
ple must raise additional 
funds privately or they 
must get a bill through 
the legislature amending 
the law to allow a larger 
percentage of the tax 
money to be spent for 
library purposes. In In¬ 
diana the power to fix 
library taxes is in the hands of the local library boards. Some 
states provide additional assistance. In New York State each 
community that will appropriate in any year $100 for new 
books is given an additional $100 by the state. 

18 . Private Individuals and Unofficial Organizations help the 
Library. We have many times called attention to the fact that 
the American people organize into formal government activities 


© Mary H. Northend 

Even the summer-camp school has its library 
shelves 









320 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


only a small part of their interests. This is especially true of 
the libraries of the nation. The part that government has had 
to do with the beginning and the control of many of them is 
small indeed. 

Many of the so-called "public” libraries are not public 
in the sense of being owned and operated by the towns and 
cities. The magnificent public library on Fifth Avenue, New 
York City, which so impressively throws open its lion-guarded 
doors to everybody, is one of the many public libraries that 
was started by private individuals and is still largely main¬ 
tained by private funds. Many gift libraries, however, are con¬ 
trolled and partly supported by town, city, or county. Perhaps 
the best-known of these are the Carnegie libraries. It was 
Mr. Carnegie’s idea that no community should be given a 
library unless it was willing to help support it. Therefore his plan 
was to give only the building, making the deed out to the com¬ 
munity on condition that it promise to support the library by a 
yearly grant of not less than one tenth of the value of his gift. 

When a group of people decide that they need a library they 
usually proceed to have one. One of the many instances of 
a small group of people securing a free public library is that 
of the village of Nashville, Brown County, Indiana. Brown 
County is a painter’s paradise, and many artists have made 
Nashville their headquarters. When one of the clergymen of 
the village started a movement for a library the artists co¬ 
operated, and in a short time a library with thirteen hundred 
volumes was the result. 

19 . How Libraries secure some of their Most Valuable Books. 
Another important kind of assistance that private individuals 
render the public libraries is that of buying rare and valuable 
books and presenting these to some public library. Many a 
shabby little treatise that stands modestly on a library’s shelves 
has cost the library more than a shelf full of elegant-looking 
volumes, merely because the book was out of print. In most 
cases the libraries which own rare books have received them 
from private collectors. One of the earliest collections obtained 



LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 321 

by the Library of Congress was the private library of Thomas 
Jefferson. The University of Texas has an especially fine col¬ 
lection of works dealing with early English literature, consist¬ 
ing of two private libraries—one that of a famous English 
scholar—which were purchased by an American and later sold 
to the university. A business man of Providence, Rhode Island, 


© Keystone View Co. 

A copy of a rare edition of the Bible, valued at $100,000, which the Cambridge 
Public Library has received from a private collector of rare books 

has made a collection of about twenty-five thousand volumes of 
books, documents, and papers dealing with the past and present 
of Rhode Island. 

An Englishman who spoke enthusiastically of some of the li¬ 
braries in the United States said: "It is a far greater achieve¬ 
ment to be the founder of a distinguished library than to be 
the head of a great commercial business. Sir Thomas Bodley 
and James Lenox will be remembered when our merchant 
princes are forgotten.” 







3 22 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


20 . What the American Library Association does for the 
Public Library. A private organization that helps public libra¬ 
ries and in some cases provides libraries is the American Library 
Association, whose headquarters are in Chicago. This asso¬ 
ciation has helped the Library of Congress secure books for the 
blind; it has compiled the various laws dealing with public 
libraries; it has drafted a model library law; it originated what 
w r as first published as Poole’s Index and later as the Reader’s 
Guide to Periodical Literature; it makes lists of the best books 
for children’s libraries, foreign-language libraries, and other 
special libraries. 

Its most conspicuous accomplishment was the war-time task 
of furnishing books to our soldiers in army camps in the United 
States, Europe, and Asia. These books were distributed through 
the War Department, but the idea and its success were to the 
credit of this association. So welcome were the books to the 
army forces in isolated places that many requests came from 
commanding officers for special consignments of books. Such 
a request was that made by the captain of the flagship of our 
Asiatic fleet to the person in charge of the American Library 
Association books in Siberia: 

I have to advise you that the U.S.S. Ajax leaves Vladi¬ 
vostok in the near future for the Yangtse River. It has 
occurred to me that you might desire to take advantage of 
this opportunity to forward such books as may be avail¬ 
able, via the Ajax , for distribution to the seven United 
States gunboats stationed on the Yangtse River. 

21 . Other Nations are setting the United States a Library 
Pace. In 1920 one state had in its public libraries an average 
of only .037 of a book for each person living in the state. The 
best showing made by any state was 1.9 books for each person. 
Europe may set the pace for us unless we are alert. Already 
the new little nation of Czechoslovakia, born of the great 
World War, has a law requiring every community to establish 
a public library and every village where there is a public school 
to have a library in use within one year from the passage of the 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 323 

law. Thus far the American people have no national or state 
compulsory free-public-library laws. 

22. When the Library fails to meet the Needs of the People. 
Since many communities have no public libraries, and since few 
libraries have enough books to meet even a small part of the 
people’s needs, each person must know how to find substitutes 
for an adequate public library. It should be possible for anyone 
to follow some one of these suggestions: 

1. Making a trip to the nearest large library and spending several 
days, or as long as may be necessary, to read carefully and make notes 
from the books desired. All artists find it necessary to visit the large 
museums. What paintings and statues are to the artist, reference books 
are to the student. Many a teacher takes a summer-school course in a 
college town chiefly because of the opportunity to use an adequate 
library. The person who really needs a library and knows that he 
needs one will find some way of reaching one. 

2. Studying carefully the catalogues of the leading publishing houses 
and then purchasing a few books that are known to be authoritative. 
In making this selection ask freely the advice of your small library 
and of those persons who are likely to know about the subject in which 
you are especially interested. 

3. Visiting the nearest bookshops, which often have valuable textbooks 
and books of reference. Second-hand bookshops frequently have useful 
books which cannot be found at regular bookstores. 

4. Writing to the American Library Association in Chicago and ask¬ 
ing advice as to the best books to buy on a special subject. 

5. Writing a letter to the State Library Commission of your state 
(the name of this commission varies in different states—at least thirty- 
seven states have such a commission), explaining that you wish to study 
up on a certain subject and need certain books, and asking if they have 
such books which they can send you or if they know where you can 
secure the loan of them. Not all state commissions have traveling 
libraries, but wherever there is a state library commission, it will give 
you helpful information. 

6. Searching out private lending libraries, which exist in most large 
towns and cities. By making a deposit you could probably become a 
member of a distant lending library if it dealt in the books that you 
needed. For the most part, however, lending libraries which charge 
from two to five cents a day for their books have only fiction and 
current history. 


3^4 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


7. Forming among your acquaintances a small circulating library, 
buying only books that have permanent value. Each person will be 
assessed a certain sum each month. Once a year the older books can 
be divided up among the members to keep, while the newer books are 
being circulated. Thus each person would have a beginning of a small 
library of his own. 

8. Reading regularly a newspaper or a weekly magazine which con¬ 
tains careful reviews of the most important new books. 

9. Asking questions freely of the people whom you know. Seek out 
the persons who perhaps have special knowledge on the subject in 
which you are interested. If by any chance someone offers to lend you 
papers or books that will be helpful, use these as promptly as possible 
and return in the same condition as when they were lent you. It is 
better to borrow the same book several times, returning it promptly 
each time, than to fail to return it when promised. 

10. Taking a special course in an evening school in which there is a 
library containing the kind of books you need. 

23 . The Museum One of the After-School Helps that Some 
Communities Offer. There are about a hundred and fifty public 
museums in the United States. Some of them contain price¬ 
less treasures from every corner of the world and of every age. 
Others contain only a scattering collection of the very old, but 
many modern pictures and other art objects. One museum has 
a famous collection of glass flowers made in Europe by botanists 
of unusual skill; another has a very complete collection of 
relics and reproductions of the American Indian. There is even 
a " whaling museum,” on Johnny Cake Hill in a New England 
city, which contains a full-rigged whaling vessel, one-half size, 
and hundreds of the implements of that picturesque old-time 
industry. An academy in a little one-street village has a small 
museum of village and school relics and of original letters and 
other documents having a national interest. All such museums 
are important links in the history of our nation, and each year 
will become more valuable. 

Every collection of things, from stones to pictures, is a kind 
of museum, and is valuable according to its completeness and 
rareness. When only ten years old Roosevelt opened in one of 



LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 325 

the rooms of his home what he called the " Roosevelt Museum 
of Natural History.” An invalid member of the Shut-in So¬ 
ciety once collected an unusually complete set of specimens of 
the grasses of the world, through correspondence with other 


© Keystone View. Co. 

Art museums are schools where one learns not by reading but by observing. 
Many of the world’s most beautiful objects are to be found in museums 

shut-ins, and thus had a kind of museum in her little home. 
Many a person has assembled rare oriental rugs, pieces of 
Italian lace, wood carvings of the Indians, etc. All of these, 
whether housed in a museum or in a room of a private dwelling 
or in one corner of one’s study, are in reality a museum. 

But only a few people can assemble their own museum. It 
is fortunate, therefore, that every year more people can avail 











COMMUNITY CIVICS 


32 6 

themselves of public museums. These are of two kinds: ( 1 ) art 
museums and ( 2 ) industrial and other special museums. Some 
of these are connected with colleges, and some are separate 
institutions. One of the few museums in the United States 
supported by the local community is the City Art Museum of 
St. Louis. Most museums are wholly or partly owned and sup¬ 
ported by private subscriptions and gifts. Even that most mag¬ 
nificent collection of rare and beautiful things from every part 
of the world—the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts in New 
York City—is in reality a private institution. But all the people 
are as free to use these museums as they are the public libraries, 

Although a museum may be so situated that one cannot visit 
it often, there are ways in which every person can get pleasure 
and profit from the one nearest his home: 

1. Write to the nearest museum (if it is not in your city) for its 
catalogues, and ask whether any special exhibitions are to be given in 
the near future. 

2. From this catalogue find out the days and hours it is open and 
the cost of admission. 

3. Figure out how much one day or a half-day at this museum would 
cost you (train fare, hotel or boarding-house, etc.). 

4. Decide to what part of the museum you will give special attention 
—modern paintings, Greek sculpture, Belgian tapestries, etc. Learn 
from the catalogue all you can about this particular part. 

5. Cut out of your daily or weekly newspaper items about this 
museum and its exhibitions. 

6. Have a notebook in which you paste these clippings and in which 
you make notes of what you want especially to see when you make 
your trip. 

7. If the museum has for sale photographs or postal cards of any of 
its paintings or sculptors, send for a few of these. 

8. From your public library learn all you can about some of the 
artists and sculptors whose work is shown in this museum. Often a 
person can in this way get almost as much profit and enjoyment from 
the nearest museum as those who are able to visit it frequently. 

24. The Open Forum and Other Lectures are Helps to an 
Education. The open forum is the kind of lecture in which the 
lecturer speaks to the audience and the audience speaks to him; 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 327 

that is, at the end of the lecture persons in the audience may ask 
the speaker questions about points that are not clear and about 
matters on which they disagree with him. This kind of lecture 
is comparatively new in the United States, but several thousand 
years ago it was the chief way in which the Greeks learned from 
their leaders. The open forum is more in keeping with the 
ideals of true democracy. It brings the speaker nearer to the 
audience, and it makes the audience better listeners and better 
thinkers. If a person knows that at the end of a lecture he will 
have an opportunity to ask the speaker questions, he is far more 
likely to listen attentively and to take away with him new ideas. 

The open forum is now a permanent part of American life. 
The kind of subjects included in such courses is illustrated by 
the opening announcement of the San Diego, California, forum 
one year: 

The San Diego Open Forum will begin its third year’s 
work with a lecture on the great republics of South Amer¬ 
ica: " Brazil, Land of the Southern Cross.” The lecturer 
has traveled more than 40,000 miles through South Amer¬ 
ica. The lecture will be illustrated with slides chosen from 
a group of more than 10,000. 

Besides the open-forum discussions lectures are given by 
prominent people in every part of the country. Never has there 
been a period when a person could so easily hear so many men 
and women talk about interesting things. Sometimes these lec¬ 
turers speak in private homes to little groups of invited guests; 
often they appear in the lecture hall of the central school, at 
other times in clubhouses, grange halls, and church audito¬ 
riums. Perhaps the smaller communities are not fortunate 
enough to be visited by the most noted speakers, but the per¬ 
sons who go from village to village telling of the nation’s Ameri¬ 
canization work, of the fight with tuberculosis, of the need for 
preserving forests, are college professors and other trained ex¬ 
perts who are the nation’s leaders and can often add more to 
the listener’s stock of information than a more famous person. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


328 

But the greatest help that lecturers can contribute is not in¬ 
formation but inspiration—inspiration to learn more and to 
do more. In almost every part of the United States during the 
summer months Chautauqua lectures are given for several 
weeks, a small price being charged for the course. The com¬ 
panies giving these lectures travel from center to center and in 



© Keystone View Co. 

Through pageants given by communities and organizations both the actors and 
the observers learn about customs and events of early days 


the course of a single season often cover several states. In a 
recent year 8351 communities had Chautauqua assemblies with 
an attendance of 10,456,500. 

25. The Drama and Pageant are Helps to an Education. 

Many plays and pageants are intended only to entertain, not to 
instruct, but many are a combination of history, geography, 
manners, and art. Any play that deals with the past, if given by 
a good company, will faithfully reproduce the costumes, man¬ 
ners, and events of those times. That is why to see the plays of 
Shakespeare is a combined lesson in history and literature. 
The plays dealing with the life of Abraham Lincoln, Alexander 
Hamilton, and the prominent men of other countries are vivid 






LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 329 

chapters in biography that help brighten up the printed pages 
of the books on our shelves. In the motion-picture theaters we 
can sit comfortably in a hall near our homes and travel swiftly 
and fascinatingly to every possession of the United States, to 
Africa, and the capitals of Europe. We can see not only what 
real travelers in these countries can see, but much that only a 
fortunate few ever see—the interior of the houses, the side 
streets, and the bits of real life that only the camera men find. 

26 . One Important Reason why After-School Education is 
Necessary. Winning the kind of education that we have been 
describing is what makes an intelligent nation. There is no 
other, easier way. The schoolhouse is only a step in the never- 
ending process. The library, the museum, the lecture hall, the 
theater, the church, the places of meeting, talking, and working, 
—these are the means by which each person grows, step by 
step. It is on this after-school education that we depend for 
the curing of all the kinds of ignorance that darken so large a 
part of the world. In the preceding chapter we have spoken of 
the ignorance that is due to illiteracy. But merely knowing how 
to read and write does not eliminate ignorance. Almost every 
form of ignorance can still be found somewhere within the 
forty-eight states. 

27 . Examples of Ignorance in the United States. In the year 
that this book was written an Italian was murdered in a town 
near New York City. He was suspected by other Italians of 
having sold himself to the devil and hence could summon the 
evil one to do his bidding whenever he chose. His acquaint¬ 
ances, therefore, wished to get rid of him, but bullets, poison, 
and blows were supposed to have no effect on a person owned 
by the devil, so they drowned him. Of course we may say that 
these Italians were not really Americans, but even if we ruled 
out all the ignorant things done by the foreign-born, we should 
still find ignorance here. 

One of the commonest forms of ignorance in America shows 
itself in the consulting-rooms and the mail of astrologers, 
mediums, palmists, and others who claim to foretell the future. 


330 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Advertisements like the following appear daily in our news¬ 
papers of every section of the United States: 


GREAT CLAIRVOYANT ! 

MME. STUART, THE SEVENTH DAUGHTER OF THE 
SEVENTH DAUGHTER 

HAS READ CARDS SINCE SHE WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD 
YOUR LIFE REVEALED —PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE— 
LADIES OR GENTS, 50 CENTS 


For a fee, sometimes large, sometimes small, these fortune¬ 
tellers advise one man to sell his stock, another to search in a 
field for a hidden treasure, another to leave his present em¬ 
ployer. To the rooms of one of these New York revealers of the 
future come people from all parts of the country. But there 
are only heartaches and disappointments for those who pay 
their money. 

The way in which Americans eagerly invest their money in 
wild enterprises is an illustration of another kind of igno¬ 
rance that is common in every country. Recently in Korea, on 
the lonely mountain of Keiyong, suddenly appeared men, 
women, and children, eager to buy a bit of land and make their 
homes there, all because someone had "said that a Korean 
prophet had said” that this mountain would one day become 
the capital and metropolis of Korea. Ignoring the fact that the 
barest kind of living could be made on the mountain, they sold 
their homes and risked their future. In the United States 
people risk their homes and their savings just as recklessly as 
these Koreans. Every year men invest their savings in silver 
and gold mines that exist nowhere except on paper, in house 
lots that are "somewhere,” but not where the buyer expects, 
in farms with worn-out soil. A reputable American bank once 
tried an amusing experiment to find out how foolish people 
could be. It inserted in one of its windows a placard, a part of 
which read as follows: 



LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 331 


GLORIOUS OPPORTUNITY TO GET RICH QUICK 
INVEST IN 

THE CALIFORNIA RANCHING COMPANY 

Now being organized to start a cat ranch in California 

We are starting a cat ranch in California with 100,000 cats. Each 
cat will average 12 kittens a year. The cat skins will sell for 
30 cents each. One hundred men can skin 5000 cats a day. We 
figure a daily net profit of over $10,000. 

Shares are selling at 5 cents each, but the price will go up soon. 

INVEST WHILE OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT YOUR DOOR 
CALIFORNIA RANCHING COMPANY 

Some gullible people will try to buy this stock. It is a foolish fake, 
of course, but no more foolish than many "wildcat” schemes being pro¬ 
moted today. Investigate before investing. Don’t hand your money 
over to any unknown, glib-tongued salesman. 


Although the last paragraph was a part of the placard, in 
smaller type than the rest of it, many men and women came 
into the bank to inquire how they could invest in this novel 
get-rich-quick scheme. 

28. How this Kind of Ignorance can be Cured. Most of the 
people guilty of these forms of ignorance had studied many 
years in school. But none of them had studied long enough. 
As we have seen, the schools are only starting-places and 
helpers-out. The greater part of a person’s education must be 
obtained after he leaves school, from many sources and in 
many ways. There is enough wisdom in the United States to¬ 
day to prevent any person from making such terrible mistakes 
as drowning another because he is a friend of the devil, or 
giving money to the "seventh daughter of the seventh daugh¬ 
ter.” This wisdom is available to anyone who can read, write, 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


332 

talk, and think. The library, the magazine and newspaper, the 
church, the lecture hall, and people —these are the means of 
continuing one’s education, which is never finished. 

29 . The Deadliest Form of Ignorance. Troublesome and 
dangerous as are the forms of ignorance just mentioned, there 
is one that is far more destructive and terrible. This we call 



© Keystone View Co. 

In America as well as in Japan women and men consult fortune tellers to 
learn of the future instead of studying out the ways to win success 


hate. Hate is the deadliest foe that any person or nation can 
have-not the hate that others have for him, but the hate that 
he turns toward others. It is hate that starts wars, kills inno¬ 
cent persons, destroys property, and does all manner of violence. 
The man who hates destroys his own happiness and his useful¬ 
ness. The hater can never become an inventor, a successful 
merchant, or a truly useful person in any activity. 

If there were no cure for hatred, then nations might well 
be filled with dismay. But there is a cure, and it can be de¬ 
scribed in the words of an inscription that appears at the right 
of the main entrance of the New York Public Library: "Above 





LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 333 

All Things Truth beareth away Victory.” The chief cause of 
hatreds is ignorance; the cure for ignorance is truth. Hate 
within the nation must be cured. The young people in school 
today can do more to effect this cure than any preceding gener¬ 
ation, because there are more libraries, more open forums, more 
books and magazines, more museums, more helps of every kind. 
The spread of the telephone, the telegraph, the increased mail 
service, the growth of good roads, all are helps. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Re-read Chapter XII in connection with the reading of this chapter. 
Make an outline of the two chapters as if they were one. 

2 . Probably you have not yet given much thought to plans for study¬ 
ing after schooldays, but begin now a page in your loose-leaf civics note¬ 
book headed, "Ways of Learning after Schooldays are Over.” Divide 
the items which you set down here into two parts, one devoted to the 
things one should learn to secure the right kind of home and the other to 
what will make for success in work life. 

3 . Re-read what was said in Chapter III about leisure, then think 
out ways that a person can make up in leisure hours for lack of school 
opportunities. 

4 . Begin at once to observe how the men and women in your com¬ 
munity are still learning. From scraps of conversation and from using 
your eyes intelligently you will get some idea about this, also by asking 
your parents and older people with whom you are well acquainted. 

5 . Of the successful persons you know how many owed their success 
to what they learned after school years ? 

6. Set aside one day for a special "listening” day just to prove to 
yourself how much that is helpful you can learn in this way. The class 
will discuss their experiences. 

7 . In your school work you have probably learned how to take notes 
on what you hear in a lecture and what you read in books and periodicals. 
To demonstrate how well you can do this, make notes to bring to class 
on the first lecture you hear or the first book other than fiction that you 
read. 

8 . Are you studying shorthand? Have you ever considered learning 
this as a help to taking notes when reading in the library or listening 


334 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


to a lecture ? Woodrow Wilson is one of the many prominent men who 
found shorthand an invaluable aid in everyday tasks. Discuss in class 
the ways in which shorthand would be of assistance to you. 

9 . What distinguished person either of the past or of the present 
do you know? Before reading anything more about this person set 
down exactly what you know about him. You will probably be sur¬ 
prised to find how few facts you have. After an evening’s further read¬ 
ing set down what you have learned to compare with your first set of 
facts. Acquaintance with a person of either the past or the present 
cannot be attained quickly. Write out a list of the things you particularly 
wish to learn about this person. 

10 . Decide on several persons—perhaps a painter or sculptor, a 
musician, a writer, a statesman, a philanthropist—whom you would 
like to know well. Begin to set down all you can learn about these. 

11 . Assume that you are talking with a younger pupil who must 
leave school now. What could you tell him about "learning by doing” ? 
Up to the present what have you learned by doing either in school 
or in vacation work. 

12 . In how many ways do you meet groups of people? What things 
do you now do in groups ? Explain how your English work helps prepare 
you for group work. What other helps does school give in this direction ? 

13 . What are some of the ways in which the older people of your 
community come together? Which of these do you think help them 
most in their after-school education? 

14 . Make a list of all the means available in your community for 
learning after schooldays are over. Find out who provides each of these, 
whether it is local, state, or national government, a private organization, 
or private individuals. 

15 . Study your library with the following or a similar outline : 

1. Location of the library. Is the library easy of access? If not, why has 

not a better location been chosen ? Is the building so marked that a 
stranger could find it easily ? 

2. The beauty of the library 

a. Describe the exterior of the building and the grounds. Is the building 

architecturally attractive ? What has been done to make the grounds 

attractive? What is the most striking feature of the exterior? 

If this is unattractive, how could it be changed? 

b. Is the interior attractive architecturally? If so, in what ways? If 

not, in what ways is it unattractive ? 


LEARNING AFTER SCHOOLDAYS ARE OVER 335 


c. Does it contain pictures or ornaments of any kind? If so, are these 

really attractive? 

d. Of how many rooms does it consist? Describe these from the point 

of view of efficiency and attractiveness. 

3. Periodical room. Does the library have a periodical room as well as a 

general room? 

a. For what periodicals does the library subscribe? 

b. What changes would you suggest? 

4. Children’s room. Is there a separate room for children, or a separate 

corner for them? 

a. If not, why not? 

b. What practical suggestions could you make along this line? 

5. Special rooms. Does your library have a special room for the use of 

the foreign-born, with periodicals and books in foreign languages? 
Would such a room be useful in your library? How could it be 
secured ? 

6 . Collections of books 

a. An especially useful part of a library is its books of reference. Find 

out how many and what kinds of the following books your library 
has and if they are up-to-date: 

(1) Dictionaries (4) Yearbooks . 

(2) Encyclopedias ( 5 ) Atlases 

(3) Lexicons 

b. Find out also how many and what kind of books the library has of 

(1) Standard fiction (3) Essays 

(2) Recent fiction (4) Foreign languages 

c. Find out about some of the out-of-print and rare books that your 

library has. How were these obtained ? 

7. Catalogue arrangement. Is it a simple matter to find the books you 

want? Tell how you do it. 

8. Atmosphere of the reading-room 

a. Is it too quiet ? too noisy ? 

b. Is the air good? . 

c. What about the lighting during the day and in the evening? What 

changes would you suggest? 

9 . Attendants 

a. Is there sufficient help at all times? 

b. Are the assistants interested in their work? 

c. What plans for betterment have they ? 

d. How could the school help in these plans? 

e. How can a person secure a position in the library? 

10 . Management. Who owns the library? Who paid for the building? the 
books? Where does the money come from which buys coal, pays tor 
lighting, pays the janitor, the librarian, and all the assistants? Is there 
a board of trustees? If so, tell how they are chosen. 


33<* 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


11. Library efficiency 

a. If the library facilities are inadequate what steps should be taken to 

improve things? What steps have been taken and what was the 
result ? 

b. If library facilities are inadequate, what compensating conditions 

are there? 

(1) What periodicals are regularly available on news stands? 

(2) What do the bookstores of the town offer? 

(3) Are there any lending fiction libraries ? Sunday-school libraries ? 

c. If your library facilities are adequate, but the library is not used by 

the people, what is the reason? Have moving pictures and the 
automobile anything to do with the situation? Do most families 
have home libraries? Do all the schools have good libraries? 

12. If your community were to be judged by its public libraries, how high 

would it stand? 

13. A part of every person’s reading should consist of 

a. A good local newspaper. 

b. A high-grade national newspaper. 

c. At least one good general magazine. 

d. Some standard fiction, biography, and essays. 

e. Some modern fiction, biography, and essays. 

/. Articles and books dealing with one’s occupation and avocation. 
Does your community offer you the means of obtaining all these ? 

16 . Turn to the list of government officials of your community in 
your loose-leaf notebook and indicate which of these directly or in¬ 
directly are concerned with the libraries, museums, churches, lecture 
courses, lecture halls, of your community. 

17 . If you find that government has little to do with the libraries and 
other helps in learning, who makes them possible ? How is this done ? 

18 . Suppose your class has been asked to dispose of $5000 in the 
way or ways that will be most helpful to the largest number of persons 
in your community in learning after schooldays are over. Appoint a 
class committee to consider the matter and make a report. This the 
class will discuss, amend if necessary, and finally vote on. The report 
should specify how the money is to be used. For example, it is not 
sufficient to say that $500 should be given to the library. 

19 . Let each member of the class make a report on the church which 
he attends or which he knows most about, to show how it can contribute 
to a person’s education. Be sure to include the art side and the oppor¬ 
tunities for learning from others. 

20 . Take a recent number of the Outlook or some other magazine and 
list the articles that supplement history, geography, civics, economics. 


CHAPTER XIV 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF AND PROVIDING WORK FOR 
OTHERS 

1 . Nearly Five Hundred Different Kinds of Work in the 
United States. Today, according to the government’s classified 
index of occupations, there are 488 different kinds of work in 
the United States. That is, a physician represents one kind of 
work and a cotton factory another of the 488. And the work of 
each of these can be subdivided: among the doctors there are 
eye specialists, surgeons, skin specialists; in the cotton factories 
there are more than 50 kinds of skilled labor and 250 kinds of 
semi-skilled labor. So the 488 must be multiplied many times 
before we have an accurate idea of the variety of work. Even 
in the same occupation there are many subdivisions. For in¬ 
stance, in one of our states there is a 1,300,000-acre cattle 
ranch on which the owner can ride for ninety miles without 
leaving his estate, except when crossing public roads, and on 
which 100,000 cattle are raised. Not many miles away is a farm 
of two and one-half acres, on which the farmer keeps a donkey, 
a cow, and two pigs, and supports himself and family. How¬ 
ever, it is not merely in size that farms and factories differ, but 
in quality and equipment. There are fertile farms and rocky 
farms, factories near water power and factories far removed 
from the source of power. No two work places are exactly 
alike. For this reason the United States is a nation of endless 
variety of work and opportunity. 

During the years following the World War there was much 
suffering because of unemployment, and in many parts of the 
country bands of unemployed marched to the mayors’ offices 
and to state capitols demanding that the government find them 
work. In some cases temporary work like road-building and 

337 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



338 

road-repairing, which the community or state expected to take 
up later, was begun at once. But this could not long continue, 
for the government cannot build new roads unless these are 
needed to increase the efficiency of the work life of the people. 
All work done by the government is taxing the future work of 
mines, wheat fields, and factories. If the coal mines remain 
idle, the wheat fields unsowed, the factories silent, then new 


Farm work offers employment for all the members of the family. (Courtesy 
of the Russell Sage Foundation and John C Campbell) 

roads will not be needed, and those who have been employed 
in building them will again be out of employment. 

A government cannot successfully make work for a nation 
of people, yet America has the swiftest, most eager workers that 
the world has seen. The explanation lies with the people them¬ 
selves, who find work for themselves and create opportunities 
for the newcomers. 

2. It is the People who provide Work for Themselves. Even 
in the hardest times it is not to the government but to the 
people that we must look for help. It is because so many 
Americans have had a spirit of daring in meeting emergencies 
in their work life that the nation has so greatly prospered in 
the past. There are instances of this spirit in every period of 







FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


339 


our development. On June 6, 1889, when the business section 
of Seattle was burned to the ground, more than $10,000,000 
worth of property was destroyed, and many a man who had 
been prosperous on June 5 was then penniless. But there was 
no lack of courage. When a ship tied up at one of the tem¬ 
porary wharves a man on the deck shouted to another on the 
wharf: 

"Oh, George! What’s the trouble with you?” 

"Nawthin’. Got the old safe out. She’s burned to a 
crisp. Books all gone.” 

"Save anything?” 

"Barrel of crackers and my wife’s bonnet. Going to 

start a store on them, though.” 

# 

When Edison’s factory was destroyed by fire and the re¬ 
porters interviewed him the next morning, they found him busy 
with plans for a new building. A young man whose back had 
been so injured that he could never walk, even with crutches, 
succeeded in earning his living in bed. He bought a second¬ 
hand motor truck, hired a boy to drive it, had a telephone and a 
directory placed near his bed, and proceeded to work up a 
local express business. In all the years that are past, "It can 
be done” has been the slogan of the workers of America, 
whether they were managing vast businesses or earning a bare 
living under the handicap of ill health and misfortune. This 
kind of enterprise will always find work. It is not the govern¬ 
ment, but the men and women, boys and girls, who themselves 
transform the neighborhoods and the nation in which they 
live into a place of work and prosperity or into a place of idle¬ 
ness and poverty. And for each person this consists only of 
three things: (1) finding work for oneself, (2) helping others 
find work, and (3) making work yield the largest possible re¬ 
turn in profit and pleasure. 

3 . Finding Work for Oneself is True Pioneering. Turn¬ 
ing one’s back on school and home and going out into a world 
in which all depends on one’s bravery and persistence is what 


340 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


makes or breaks every young person. A successful American 
who came here as an immigrant boy said that at first he was 
bitterly disappointed in America because no one seemed in¬ 
terested in helping him. Then after a few years he realized that 
America offered the very best kind of help—the chance to help 
oneself. Nothing was made easy, but no one stood in his way. 



Allen N. Hoxsie 


New kinds of opportunities are made by the alert. Automobile travel has 
brought into existence wayside markets in even the isolated rural regions 


Clemenceau, who lived in the United States several years in his 
early life, said of these years, "I learned what Europe hadn’t 
taught me—to help myself.” It is the same with young people 
born in this country. When John Muir was ready to leave home 
and make his own way in the world, he asked his father whether, 
if he should happen to be in need of money, he would send him 
a little. The father replied, "No, depend entirely on yourself.” 

Making one’s way as Muir did was pioneering just as surely 
as were the men who made camp in the edge of untracked 
forests and began to fell trees and cultivate the land. Probably 
every red-blooded American at times regrets that the days of 













FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


34i 

pioneering are gone, because these meant fighting cold, hunger, 
animals, Indians, but the true pioneer was one who was suc¬ 
cessful not only in fighting Indians but in enduring the years of 
loneliness and back-breaking work of clearing forests and 
cultivating the fields. Making one’s way farther and farther 
west when a wagon road was only a dream of a distant future 
was a true test of the courage of the pioneers. Today instead 
of untracked forests there are new inventions to be worked out, 
new businesses to be developed, new cures to be found for dis¬ 
eases, new ways to be devised for preventing waste, and new 
devices for making routine work more interesting. Not only 
are there new and difficult things to be done, but old tasks to 
be undertaken in a pioneer spirit. 

4 . Every American is Free to choose between Easy Tasks 
and Difficult Ones. The one way of pioneering open to every 
American is through the work by which he earns his living. In 
the United States, as in no other country, almost limitless op¬ 
portunity lies before the young people. 

An English boy of seventeen knows pretty well what the 
future can give him ... if he is a poor boy who has 
gone to the national schools, he knows perfectly well that 
barring extraordinary accidents he will always be a small 
man, an employed man, a union shopkeeper, etc. That is 
not the situation in America. Every boy knows that noth¬ 
ing need stop him, that no class bar will cut him off from 
any position or any office. 

5 . In America Doors open for the Young People who know 
where they are going. To many young people it often looks 
as if there were no choice of work. The boy on the farm knows 
that his brains and muscle will be needed there, whatever his 
desires may be. The boy in the Pittsburgh valley knows that 
the easiest position to get and perhaps the only one available 
will be in the steel mills. The young people in small towns 
where there is but one mill and a few stores seem to have prac¬ 
tically no choice of work. There is,always a choice, however,— 


342 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


perhaps not at first, for one has to earn the right to choose; but 
sooner or later the world makes way for the person who knows 
where he wants to go and is never turned aside no matter how 
often he may be delayed. The high-school boy who wants to be 
a buyer of cotton for a cotton mill has only to keep his mind 
steadily on that goal. It will be by reading and studying in his 
outside time, by asking questions of the different workers in 
the mill, by subscribing to one of the cotton manufacturer’s 
papers, by having his own private " cotton ” museum,— a bureau 
drawer or a shelf full of samples of raw cotton, of goods made 
from the different kinds of cotton,—that he will make his way. 

6 . There are Ways Up and Out of the Humblest Begin¬ 
nings. The first year in any position is an information-getting 
year. In addition to performing as efficiently as possible routine 
duties, the beginner learns what are the other positions in the 
concern for which he works, what the duties of these are, and 
how they are related to his work. Some of the most valuable 
workers in every occupation are those who started in the hum¬ 
blest positions and by keeping always alert found doors opening 
where there had seemed to be no doors. When a visitor was 
being shown over the Chicago stockyards the guide told him 
that an automatic heating device used in the making of mar¬ 
garine was the invention of an employee, and said, "Almost all 
the machines that are used here were either made or improved 
by the workingmen.” And this is true of many great manufac¬ 
turing establishments. In a rubber-shoe factory a few years 
ago it was said that every improvement made in machinery 
and processes within the preceding twenty years had been either 
suggested or developed by ordinary workmen. 

Such a conspicuous accomplishment as the discovery of the 
north pole was done "in the line of duty and after twenty-three 
years of endeavor under orders of the president of the United 
States.” Peary was an officer in the United States navy—and 
officers, like privates, are constantly under the orders of their 
superiors. An officer assigned to Chinese waters must stay in 
Chinese waters, an officer assigned to charting the coast of 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


343 



Alaska must chart the coast of Alaska. Peary had been as¬ 
signed the task of mapping the coast, line of the arctic region. 
It was in this connection that he learned the north-pole region 
well enough to make 
the daring attempt that 
resulted in success. No 
person can say that there 
is not a "north pole” in 
the position that at first 
seems so undesirable. 

If a young person finds 
it necessary to take the 
work nearest at hand, 
regardless of its desira¬ 
bility or his fitness to 
do it, this does not mean 
that he must be tied to 
it all his life. The time 
given to it can be a sav¬ 
ing, learning, and wait¬ 
ing period that will be 
capital to him in later 
years. Only the weak 
are too impatient to 
wait; the strong gain 
strength by active wait¬ 
ing. Even if a pupil 
happens to be the only 
one in his class who has 
to take the first position 

that offers, he is not being set back in the race toward success 
and usefulness. He may, and often does, outdistance those who 
found a clear path ahead. 

7 . One need be Ashamed only of Poor Work. While doing 
the nearest thing, however, the young person should master his 
work, no matter how humble it is. Roosevelt at one time pointed 


© Underwood & Underwood 

Every worker who masters his work has an 
opportunity to think out an invention or 
a plan for improving it 






344 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


out that the humblest kind of work never abased a person—it 
was only ignorance and poor work that could hurt the worker. 
The imposing tomb on the heights of Riverside Drive, New 
York City, overlooking the Hudson River, marks the last 

resting-place of a man 
who at one time tried to 
support his family by 
cutting wood and clean¬ 
ing back yards. He did 
this work uncomplain¬ 
ingly and well, and was 
not unfitted by it for 
later becoming one of 
the greatest generals 
America has had—Gen¬ 
eral Grant. It is only 
dishonest work or the 
wrong spirit in work 
that can bring shame. 

8 . Choosing One’s 
Life Work. While mas¬ 
tering the first position 
the young person should 
also decide definitely 
what kind of work he 
wants to take up when 
opportunity offers. Per¬ 
haps in school he had 
already made this deci¬ 
sion, but it is wise to 
think himself and opportunities over again carefully. His choice 
must fall in some one of these general divisions: (i) agricultural 
work, (2) mining, (3) manufacturing, (4) business, (5) pro¬ 
fessional work, (6) trades, (7) government work. 

In connection with any kind of work there are a great many 
positions. As we have already seen, there are four hundred and 



Newspaper selling is not always blind-alley 
work. This newsboy made it so successful 
that he became a member of the chamber 
of commerce of Seattle 





FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 345 

cighty-cight different kinds of work listed by the government 
in its census report, and in each of these there are many varie¬ 
ties. The field to choose from gets a little wider each year. 

9 . Opportunities in Agriculture and Mining. In agricultural 
work these are some of the opportunities: 

1. Buying a farm and either cultivating the land or raising stock 
or both. 

2. Working at the business end of farming on the farm owned by 
another person. 

3. Working at the laboratory end of farming in state agricultural 
experiment stations, or for the government at Washington, or for one¬ 
self on his own farm. By laboratory end we mean experimenting with 
seed, soil, diseases of grain, fruit, and animals. 

4. Working at the publicity end of farming, either for the state or 
national departments of agriculture, which, by means of pamphlets, 
lectures, motion pictures, distribute the knowledge that the laboratory 
workers accumulate. Valuable publicity work is also done by securing 
positions with agricultural papers. 

5 . Teaching in agricultural colleges and high schools and teaching 
special agricultural subjects in rural schools. 

Agricultural work is related to growing things in the soil or 
on it. Mining is the taking of things out of the earth—coal, 
gold, rocks, clay. Agriculture gives us materials for food and 
clothing; mining gives us materials for fuel, buildings, machin¬ 
ery, and other necessary and ornamental articles. The posi¬ 
tions in mining vary from mining engineers, who locate mines 
and plan their development, to men who work in mines, at 
oil wells, and in granite quarries. The various workers might 
be summarized as 

1. Manual-labor workers in mines and quarries. 

2. Foremen and superintendents in mines and quarries. 

3. Business managers. 

4. Chemists and engineering experts. 

5. Those connected with the buying and selling sides. 

6. Government workers in the Bureau of Mines of the Department 
of Labor, who study ways of eliminating accidents in mines and in 
securing efficiency. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


346 

10 . Opportunities in Manufacturing. Although manufactur¬ 
ing is closely related to agriculture and mining, it seems for the 
most part worlds away from them, but all are indispensable 
parts of American life. Some of the opportunities in the manu¬ 
facturing world are 

1. Holding stenographic, bookkeeping, or other clerical positions in 
factories. 

2. Buying materials used by the factory in making its goods, and 
selling the product of the factory. Both buying and selling may be done 
through correspondence or in person. Each factory usually requires 
a combination of both. 

3. Working at the actual making of things—in some one of the 
many processes necessary before raw materials become goods ready to 
sell. Such work may be either skilled or unskilled. 

4. Taking some part in managing; that is, in planning how many 
machines to have, how many workers are needed, and how much pay 
they shall receive. 

5. Taking some part in the financing and extending of the business. 

11 . Opportunities in Business. Business positions overlap 
and often coincide with agricultural and manufacturing posi¬ 
tions. The varied and complicated work of transporting by 
wagon, truck, railroad, and steamship the products of farm and 
factory and the buying and selling of these to the people who 
will use them constitute the greater part of what we call busi¬ 
ness life. Another important part is the lending and investing of 
money to aid buying and selling, farming and manufacturing. 
This is accomplished through banks and various investment 
concerns. The skyscrapers of our great cities, the little corner 
groceries in the country, the network of railroads, and the maze 
of telegraph and telephone wires are indexes of the business life 
of the nation. An Englishman said that to step into some of 
the modern office buildings in America was to "step up fifty 
years in the scale of civilization.” Many of our modern depart¬ 
ment stores and business offices are more like great palaces 
than centers of buying and selling. Important and fascinating 
as is business life, it rests squarely on agriculture, mining, and 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


347 


manufacturing, and young people embarking upon a business 
career should have an understanding of the branches of agricul¬ 
ture, the forms of mining, and the kinds of manufactories on 
which the business in which they are engaged is founded. 



© Keystone View Co. 

Many kinds of work can be made of direct benefit to the community. The 
man who opened a chain of " five-and-ten-cent ” meat markets was both an 
enterprising business man and a public benefactor 


In business life these are some of the opportunities: 

1. Doing clerical work, stenography, or bookkeeping in stores, rail¬ 
roads, or banks. 

2. Buying goods from the farms and factories. 

3. Selling goods by mail, over the counter, or by going to buyers with 
samples. 

4. Managing departments in stores, railroad and express companies, 
telegraph and telephone companies, or steamship companies. 

5. Holding positions of responsibility in banks and trust companies. 

6. Helping enlarge some department of a business or starting a new 
business for oneself. 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


348 

12 , Opportunities in Professional Life. In professional work 
there is almost as wide a range as in business life. The chief 
professions open to young people in the United States are 

1. Teaching, which includes every subject from business and agri¬ 
culture to art. 

2. Religious work, in any one of the many denominations. 

3. Practicing medicine or surgery, which includes working for a 
salary in a dispensary or another doctor’s office, or on the staff of a 
hospital. 

4. Practicing law, which includes making wills and doing legal 
office work for another person, acting as judges of courts, and practicing 
for oneself either in general law work or in some special branch (for 
example, patents). 

5. Architectural work, which includes designing mills, schoolhouses, 
business blocks, public buildings, and private dwellings. 

6. Engineering, which includes opening up mines, laying out rail¬ 
roads, building bridges, making harbors, changing rivers, digging canals. 

7. Painting, illustrating, and designing, including work done inde¬ 
pendently and sold wherever possible and salaried work for magazines, 
newspapers, stores, and factories. 

8. The musical professions, including the work of organists, pianists, 
singers, and those who teach music. 

9. Writing and editing books, and writing articles, stories, poems, 
etc. for magazines and newspapers. Most writers are regularly employed 
by magazines, newspapers, or publishing houses. There are, however, 
many who write independently and sell their work where they can. 

10. Social work, which includes conducting settlements, visiting the 
sick, and making studies of poverty and disease. 

11. Nursing in hospitals, dispensaries, and private homes. 

13 . Opportunities in the Trades. Of a similar special char¬ 
acter are the kinds of work which we know as trades. The 
carpenter, the plumber, the machinist, are trade workers. Like 
the professional workers they require special skill and training. 
All these kinds of work are dependent on farming, manufactur¬ 
ing, and business, for only when these are flourishing do the 
people build houses, barns, and factories, install plumbing, and 
make other improvements. Most of the trades are so closely 
related to the health and welfare of the community that they 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


349 



are as important as the government health officers and the de¬ 
partment of public welfare. If the carpenter does poor work, 
leaking roofs or drafty windows will cause discomfort and per¬ 
haps ill health, as well as the needless expense of remedying 
the defects. The plumber who does poor work or slow work 
is so endangering the 
health of children and 
families or so increasing 
their bills that suffering 
and hardship will result. 

14 . Opportunities in 
Government Work. In 
government work there 
are two kinds of posi¬ 
tions: (i) political posi¬ 
tions, such as mayor, 
school superintendent, 
treasurer, highway com¬ 
missioner; and (2) civil- 
service positions, which 
a person secures by a 
competitive examination. 

Few young people will 
plan to go directly into 
political life; they need 
first to get experience in 
the working world, for 
that is the great training school for mayors and presidents. All 
political positions should be looked on not so much as oppor¬ 
tunities to earn a living as opportunities to do one’s part in 
making government honest and efficient. But many students 
will go directly from high school and college to civil-service 
positions in either city, state, or nation. Sometimes the civil- 
service position offers opportunities for travel and for living in 
new surroundings among strangers, all of which is a kind of 
postgraduate course in one’s education. Information about city 


© Keystone View Co. 

One of the government employees of a great 
city—a chemist testing the city’s water 









COMMUNITY CIVICS 



350 

and state civil-service positions can be obtained by writing 
directly to the civil service commissioner at the capitol or city 
hall. For information about such positions with the Federal 
government one should write to the different departments. 

15 . Choosing an Occu¬ 
pation that will help the 
Community and the Nation. 
Because we live in a com¬ 
munity which is one small 
part of a great nation, we 
must choose our work not 
only with a view to pleas¬ 
ing ourselves, but with the 
purpose of being as useful 
as possible to the nation. 
Therefore every young per¬ 
son should try to learn (i) 
what kinds of work will 
be of the greatest good to 
everybody and (2) in which 
kinds of work there is an 
undersupply. In 1921 one 
of the curators of the Met¬ 
ropolitan Museum of Art in 
New York City estimated 
that the world’s shortage 
of trained designers (of 
dress goods, draperies, wall 
papers, lamps, vases, carpets) was at least fifty thousand. Even 
before the war there were not enough trained workers to fill 
many of the positions. In 1919 a New York banker gave to 
the Chamber of Commerce of New York State $200,000 to be 
used to train selected young men for bank work. In spite of the 
large number of business schools there were never enough expert 
accountants, bookkeepers, stenographers, and other bank 
workers. Opportunities had been lying around unused in every 


Never stop dreaming. It was Columbus’s 
boyhood dreams that made him a dis¬ 
coverer. (From a painting by Vierra) 








FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


35i 


great business in New York, Chicago, and the other big cities. 
This has been true of other occupations. In the Department of 
Agriculture at one time the need for specially trained young 
men was such that search was made among the high schools 
to find boys to prepare for positions in the department. 

16 . Always a Shortage of those Eager for Difficult Work. In 
every kind of difficult or highly skilled work there is a shortage 
for the reason given above and also for the reason that an in¬ 
creasingly large number of people are looking only for easy 
things to do—short hours, easy and safe work. There is always 
a lack of the lawyers who can take difficult cases involving tech¬ 
nical details and secure justice for an oppressed client, chemists 
who can find ways of preventing waste in factories, farmers who 
love and understand the soil, surgeons who are steady of nerve 
and skillful with the knife, nurses who can take a critical case 
and hour by hour help the patient fight a winning battle with 
death. In a recent year the health commissioner of New York 
City, in announcing that there was a grave shortage of trained 
nurses, said that the reason for this seemed to lie in the fact 
that the requirements for success were too high—too many 
years of hard study and hospital training were required before 
one could get a diploma. 

17 . Learning about Special Opportunities. There are many 
ways while one is still in school of getting special knowledge to 
enable one to look ahead: 

1. Every teacher and principal is a source of information and advice. 
Some schools have special vocational-advice bureaus or departments, 
with books, reports, and other printed material, that give up-to-date 
information about occupations. 

2. Every public library has encyclopedias of agriculture, reference 
books, and special books and periodicals on the different occupations. 

3. No town is so small or unimportant that it does not have business 
men, doctors, lawyers, farmers, who know something about the work 
opportunities outside their community. 

4. One can always write to the state board of education or to the 
department of labor or to the departments of agriculture or forestry 
for information of certain kinds. 


352 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


5. One can also write a simple, straightforward letter, inclosing a 
stamped addressed envelope for reply, to the manager of any business 
house, law firm, or manufacturing plant, asking how a person can 
secure a position with that house, firm, or plant, and he will probably 
receive a reply. 

6. For information about civil-service positions a letter to the civil- 
service commission of the city, the state, or the nation will bring 
printed material. 

7. The advertisements of the newspapers give much information. 

Always get information about both the advantages and disad¬ 
vantages of an occupation. Talk with a person who has suc¬ 
ceeded in that occupation and with one who has not, or at least 
with one who is not happy in his work. Try to determine why 
the successful person succeeded and the other person failed. 

18 . Planning to help support Others. For every worker in 
the United States there are two or more nonworkers. Accord¬ 
ing to a recent census almost exactly half of the people of 
New York City worked for a living. This meant that more than 
half of the city’s population lived on the present or past work of 
others. There are few workers who will not at some time in 
their wage-earning years have to help support one or more 
persons. In large families the ones who first become bread¬ 
winners often have to help pay for the schoolbooks and clothes 
of the children still in school. In other cases it is a grandfather, 
an invalid sister, or some other handicapped relative who must 
be cared for. No person can say surely that in the coming years 
he will be free from this kind of responsibility. 

Whether or not a worker has relatives to help support, he 
will always need to give some assistance to the unfortunate 
ones of the community and nation. Much of the tax money 
goes to support the crippled, the old, and friendless, but there 
will be other ways than through the indirect means of taxation 
that workers can help. It will be "tiding over” a friend who is 
out of work, helping an acquaintance take a needed vacation, 
giving money to starving children in foreign countries, lending 
money to college students, contributing to the support of the 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 



353 

church. Every person, therefore, ought to choose an occupation 
in which he can hope to make himself so useful that the money 
return will enable him, with saving and careful planning, to 
do his share in helping those who are in trouble or in need. 

19 . Getting together 
the Tools of Work. A 
part of preparing for 
one’s work is getting 
together the right kind 
of tools or equipment. 

Whether it is a trade 
or a profession, each 
kind of work requires 
certain tools. Many a 
person has attained only 
half success because his 
tools were old-fashioned 
and inadequate or be¬ 
cause he did not under¬ 
stand the importance 
of equipment. Out of 
seventy-two farmers 
who tried to rent an 
Indiana farm in a recent 
year, sixty-five "had an 
automobile, but no 
horse, and refused to 
exchange the machine 
for a farm team.’’When 
the first crop of another farmer was sold he spent all the sur¬ 
plus for a touring car, although he had "no respectable furnish¬ 
ing for his home, not even for his kitchen.” 

The equipment for earning a living consists of two parts: 
(i) general equipment needed by every person; (2) special 
equipment needed for special kinds of work. The general equip¬ 
ment needed by everyone might be summarized thus : 


© Keystone View Co. 

The house and toys that a crippled soldier 
made. Every person can belong to some asso¬ 
ciation that helps handicapped persons earn 
a living 













354 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


1. Mastery of the English language. 

2. Knowledge of the ways of using a library. 

3. Ability to mingle with people and learn from them. 

4. A small collection of such books as 

a. An unabridged dictionary. 

b. A good English grammar. 

c. An up-to-date atlas. 

d. The World Almanac or a similar work. 

e. A good American history. 

/. A textbook of civil government. 

5. Loose-leaf notebooks for keeping notes about worth-while things 
and especially one’s work. A fountain pen or an indelible-lead pencil for 
taking notes. 

6. A desk or a bureau or a chest in which can be put away in orderly 
fashion the books, memorandum, and other equipment. 

The special equipment varies for each kind of work and with 
the passing of years. That of the farmer includes the best of the 
devices for saving labor both in the fields and in the house, 
one or more agricultural weeklies, bulletins from the state and 
national departments of agriculture, catalogues of the best seed 
firms, addresses of experts on seeds, diseases, and farm machin¬ 
ery. The stenographer who has a typewriter of her own, who 
has a dictionary, a book of synonyms, and other helpful books 
also in her home, is a little surer of success than one who is 
content with insufficient equipment. 

In every worker’s home, whether this is a small room in 
a boarding-house or all of a spacious house, there should be 
some corner which can be a kind of work laboratory, where 
books, papers, and other equipment can be kept. Here he should 
record the experiences that have been helpful, make the experi¬ 
ments necessary to become more efficient, and study out ways 
of becoming more useful or of getting more pleasure out of 
his work. 

20 . Finding Work for One’s Spare Time. Occupation for 
one’s spare time is sometimes referred to as an avocation. 
Josef Hofmann, one of the world’s greatest pianists, in his 
spare time was a motor mechanic, and during his busiest years 



FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 355 

designed three different automobiles unassisted. A business 
man when ordered by his physician to "find a hobby” noticed 
a microscope on the doctor’s table, became interested, and said, 
"All right, I’ll study microscopy.” He found the use of the 
microscope so fascinating that he was as eager to go from busi¬ 
ness to the microscope at night as he was to get to his office in 


© Keystone View Co. 

The girl who works in an office or in a factory can make an interesting and 
profitable avocation of canning vegetables and fruit 

the morning. The avocation of a college professor was farming, 
that of a dealer in second-hand furniture was studying law. 
And so we might continue. 

Those who earn their living by brain work need an avoca¬ 
tion that requires some handwork, and those whose regular 
occupation depends chiefly on skilled hands should choose for 
leisure hours work requiring alertness of mind. It is especially 
important that those who earn their living in some occupation 
which is distasteful to them have a pastime that brings genuine 
satisfaction. Some of the most important inventions, the most 
beautiful poems, songs, stories, pictures, have been made in the 






COMMUNITY CIVICS 


356 

leisure time of men and women who have had to earn their 
living at distasteful or uninteresting tasks. 

21 . All Work must be planned with the Home in Mind. In 
choosing both a regular occupation and an avocation one 
must never forget the home in the background. A person will 
never do ignoble or dishonest work even for the sake of his 
home, but because of the home he will often choose work that 
is distasteful or that does not promise a great future. Pleasant 
surroundings, nearness to friends, a climate that is favorable to 
health, often are so important to the welfare of some members 
of the family that work life must be secondary. In many cases 
illness or other difficult problems at home require so much time 
and thought that the worker cannot climb the ladder of success 
rapidly. No success can ever make up for neglected home 
opportunities. It will frequently happen then that a person 
has to choose work that he does not like, and is obliged to be 
content with only half success. In such cases a person’s avoca¬ 
tion should always be something that will balance the drabness 
of the daily work. 

22 . Providing Work for Others. To make the work life of 
the nation a success there must be many Americans who not 
only find work for themselves but provide work for others. The 
one way open to every person is that of doing his own work so 
efficiently that this will create opportunities for others. This is 
the best argument for hard work. The slacker is keeping work 
from others, not making more for them. The more wheat the 
farmer raises, the more carloads must be transported to grain 
elevators, making more work for handlers of freight; the more 
bread will be baked and sold; and so on. The more orders a 
traveling salesman gets, the more workers will be needed at the 
mill to make the goods. The more houses a carpenter builds, 
the more work there is for painters, paperers, plasterers. 

Another way that practically every worker can help provide 
work for others is by saving a part of his wages or salary and 
putting this in the savings bank or cooperative bank, or invest¬ 
ing it in some essential business. A part of every dollar placed 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


357 

in a savings bank is lent to important industries and business 
undertakings: to railroads to buy new engines and to lay new 
tracks; to towns and cities to build new schools, to repair 
streets and to build new roads. All this means work for large 
numbers of people. 

The third way that a person provides work for others is by 
using all his ideas and ability to improve present work or to 
organize new work. The chemist who finds a way to utilize the 
waste of a factory is making work for someone; the foreman 
who succeeds by his fairness and ability in keeping the men 
under him satisfied is causing more work to be done; the shoe 
repairer who enlarges his business by buying power machinery 
does more work and requires helpers. The illustrations are in¬ 
numerable. Not every person has either the ideas that make 
new undertakings possible or the ability to put his ideas into 
practical form. Most people are followers in work, as in every¬ 
thing else, but those who have the ability to create new kinds of 
work or to extend old kinds owe it to those who do not have 
such ability to use it in a way that will be for the good of all. 

23 . Finding Work for Others. Every person owes it to those 
who need work to give them all the information and help 
possible. Each worker should try to know about at least one 
kind of work besides his own and thus have one more means of 
helping another. Even the busiest person has many opportuni¬ 
ties of learning about different kinds of work; all he needs is to 
take pains to remember what he hears, sees, and reads, and 
have this information ready to pass on when there is oppor¬ 
tunity. This will never be a burden, for learning about work 
and workers is always fascinating. 

24 . Finding Work for the Handicapped. In every commu¬ 
nity there will be many persons handicapped by blindness or 
some other physical defect. Their greatest hardship is their 
inability to find work and be truly useful. For every such per¬ 
son there ought to be several "whole” persons who will make 
it a part of their service to the community to help him find 
Work. This is an opportunity for leadership open to everyone. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


358 

The industrial aid society of a certain community one year 
found 269 permanent and 158 temporary positions for handi¬ 
capped persons. One day a large city newspaper contained the 
following advertisement: 

Wanted. World War veteran with only one I 
leg or arm. Steady position and good pay. | 

Address B. P. O. 

The man who inserted this was a prominent business man who 
believed that he had a duty toward the handicapped. A large 
manufacturing concern in New Jersey employs scores of blind, 
lame, and otherwise disabled persons. This is not done to get 
cheap help, but to give help. The owner of the factory believes 
that he has a duty to perform. 

25 . Some of the Ways in which Government helps the People 
find Work. There are certain helps in finding work that people 
can get by means of government. These are 

1. Help in preparing for work, through schools and libraries. 

2. Information about work conditions and work opportunities 
through vocational advisers and placement bureaus connected with 
schools. 

3. Assistance in finding work through state employment agencies 
and state and national departments of agriculture and labor. 

Of course in hundreds of ways the government is helping pro¬ 
vide work. Every time it issues a new patent, every time it 
passes a law placing a tariff on foreign goods or removing the 
tariff from some class of goods, every time it builds or repairs a 
road, it is affecting the amount and kind of work. The patents 
dealing with radio apparatus were the first step in opening up 
new positions for many persons. The tariff on German dyes 
made the employment of many thousands of additional workers 
possible in the American dye industry. An act of Congress like 
the Reclamation Act, which made it possible to irrigate arid 
lands, created farms for unestimated hundreds. In many such 
ways the people have turned over to the government the means 
of increasing the opportunities for work. 



FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


359 

26 . Some of the Special Problems of All Workers. Every 
worker, whether doctor, teacher, or housekeeper, needs to talk 
over the problems of his work with others engaged in the same 
tasks. When the poet Longfellow was fourteen years old he 
formed a literary interchange and partnership with a friend, 



© Keystone View Co. 

The Young Women’s Christian Association is one of the many private 
organizations that help the unemployed find positions 


William Browne, a bright youth a little older than himself. 
This was invaluable to Longfellow, for the boys discussed ideas 
and criticized each other’s work freely. What these two did 
in an informal way most persons now do through larger organi¬ 
zations. The doctors have a medical association, the dentists a 
similar association. Teachers’ clubs are found in many sections, 
and in addition there are associations of geography teachers, 
English teachers, etc. Methods of work, new helps, special 










COMMUNITY CIVICS 


360 

problems, are talked over at the meetings. Usually there is also 
a magazine issued by such associations, which keeps the mem¬ 
bers informed of what is taking place. 

In addition to associations of workers like those just men¬ 
tioned others are made necessary by the special problems of 



© Keystone View Co. 


To find work for the unfortunate and handicapped is one of the opportunities 
for wide-awake Americans. These men are convicts employed on a stone 
crusher. What kind of work do the inmates of your prisons do ? 

modern industrial conditions, where large numbers of workers 
are brought together. These are connected with a person’s rela¬ 
tions to other workers and to his employer. 

27 . Workers’Associations. In many kinds of work there are 
associations of the employees to help them get just wages and 
good working hours from the owners of the business. These 
associations are usually known as labor unions and are strongest 
in the kinds of work that have to be done in factories, in the 
construction of buildings, on railroads, and in mines. If the 




FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


361 

worker belongs to a union, it is the officers of the union who act 
for him in dealing with his employer. This means that workers 
must see to it that they choose the right kind of officials. To 
choose the wrong kind might be as disastrous as to choose the 
wrong president of the United States—an impatient, fire-eating 
president could plunge the United States into war. Impatient 
work officials could plunge workers into serious trouble. 

An increasingly large number of business firms have formed 
organizations of managers, superintendents, and employees to 
meet to talk matters over. There are factories in which all 
questions of wages, hours, and general working conditions are 
decided by such organizations. Unless employers offer good 
surroundings, fair wages, and a square deal in every way they 
cannot have loyal employees; and unless employees show an 
appreciation of good surroundings, fair wages, and a square 
deal by giving a full equivalent of the best work of which they 
are capable, they will wreck their employers and bring disaster 
to themselves. 

28 . Understanding the Problems connected with One’s Work. 

Every young person does, or should, begin his working years as 
an employee. This means that he must do certain things that 
are laid out for him to do. Often all that the employer wants is 
quickness, neatness, and accuracy. If the employee finds addi¬ 
tional ways of being helpful or better ways of doing the old 
tasks, he is usually eager to have these appreciated. Sometimes 
they are not, however, and the worker begins to wonder if the 
working world is not a pleasant place onI$ for the employers. 
Sometimes the first difficulty encountered is not the lack 
of appreciation on the employer’s part but distrust and inter¬ 
ference on the part of fellow workers. In every place of work 
there are clock watchers and half-trained or otherwise incom¬ 
petent persons who have failed to make the most of their 
opportunities and never lose a chance to hold others back. 

Because in the United States the man who is an employee to¬ 
day often is an employer tomorrow, each worker needs to 
understand the problem of the employer and study to make 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


362 

himself competent to become one. Both employees and em¬ 
ployers need to understand these facts about the work: 

1. On what national resources it is directly or indirectly dependent 
for its raw materials and where these materials come from. 

2. On what resources outside the United States it is dependent and 
where these come from. 

3. How the product is marketed. 

4. What factors help make good times and hard times. 

5. How money is obtained to finance business. 

6 . How factories, stores, railroads, are usually owned not by one or 
two persons but by many hundreds. 

7. How an employee can often own a part of a big industry. 

8. How tariff laws and rulings of the Interstate Commerce Com¬ 
mission affect workers. 

9. How tariff laws of foreign nations affect the work of Americans. 

10. How inadequate wages and bad working conditions result in poor 
work and distrust. 

11. How poor work results in smaller profits, reduced wages, and 
periods of idleness. 

12. That insufficient wages and too long hours ruin the home and 
affect work unfavorably. 

13. That ignorance of conditions outlined in 1-11 makes it impossible 
for the worker to do his best work or to have the most contented home. 

14. That men and women with ideas and the ability to organize have 
been indispensable to the success of the work. 

29 . Making Big Plans. In Chapters I and II we spoke of 
the vast work undertakings of the American people, while most 
of this chapter has been taken up in discussing such little things 
as getting a start, being contented with an occupation that is not 
congenial, understanding one’s employer. These are all neces¬ 
sary details in one’s success in earning a living, but in giving 
attention to these no pupil should for a moment let himself be 
content with little ambitions, little plans. The advice that one 
of America’s most successful architects gave to young people 
ought to be written over the doors of every schoolhouse and 
college: "Make no little plans. . . . Make big plans. . . . 
Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things 
that would stagger us.” 


FINDING WORK FOR ONESELF 


363 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1. Before reading this chapter re-read Chapters I and II and have 
these in mind when studying this present chapter. 

2. In reading and discussing this chapter keep in mind that "finding 
work for others” is as important as "finding work for oneself.” In your 
loose-leaf civics notebook start a page headed, "Finding Work for My¬ 
self” and one "Providing Work for Others.” 

3. For your own and your teacher’s guidance write out a brief state¬ 
ment of what kind of work you think you will take up and what 
plans for it you have already made. Include this in your notebook 
and indicate any changes in plans that you make and all suggestions that 
come to you as a result of the study of this and succeeding chapters. 

4. In order to add to the interest and benefit of the study of occupa¬ 
tions also start a page in your notebook headed, "Helping find Work 

for -,” inserting in the blank the name of a younger brother or 

sister or some handicapped person whom you would like to help. Set 
down all the ideas and information that you get which would be helpful 
to this person. 

5. Set aside all thought of the occupation you would like to choose 
and consider only the kinds of work that the nation today most needs. 
Could you undertake any of these if you found that you possessed 
the necessary qualifications ? What reason would you give yourself for 
choosing a kind of work that is not of special help to the nation when 
you have the ability to undertake it ? 

6. Re-read what was said in Chapter XI about work leaders. What 
kind of work leaders does your community have ? 

7. In studying Chapter XII you made out a list of the ways in which 
the various studies of your present school work would help you prepare 
for your future occupation. Take this list and add to it the kinds of 
outside study and activity that would be helpful. 

8. Look around your community to find how many ways there are 
of helping you succeed once you are already at work. 

9. In Chapter XII it was stated that college graduates have special 
opportunities to change "bottom” positions into "top” positions. This 
is true not only of college graduates but of everyone who understands 
that studying days are never over. Take some kind of humble work 
and show how this could be transformed by the right kind of worker 
(shoe repairing, selling newspapers, taking care of furnaces, etc.). 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


364 

10. There have been many instances of men and women whose work 
life has been hindered by home-life difficulties. Charles Lamb was one 
of these, President McKinley was another. Probably you can think of 
others. Show how deferring to the home added to the character of 
these men. 

11. Re-read Chapter III. Suppose that in your work life you come in 
contact with the different kinds of workers who have the wrong feeling 
about their work. What would be your attitude toward them ? 

12. In Chapter XIII you learned how useful older friends and ac¬ 
quaintances could be. In your work life it will be especially helpful to 
have an older friend who has already succeeded in the kind of work you 
hope to take up. If you cannot form a friendship with such a person, 
learn all that you can about him: how he succeeded, what school 
training he had, what helps other than school he has had, to what clubs 
and associations he belongs, how he spends his vacations, what kind of 
home he has. 

13. Select several of the most important forms of work in your 
state and community and find out how these have been built up through 
( 1 ) ideas, ( 2 ) organization, ( 3 ) hard work. Learn enough details about 
one or several of these to convince yourself that hard work alone never 
could have made them possible. 

14. Are there any handicapped persons in your community who are 
employed? If so, find out how they fitted themselves for their work. 
Learn as much as possible about the opportunities open to blind and 
crippled persons in your state. Does the government provide schools 
and other helps? If so, where are they, how does one enter, and for 
what is one fitted when he leaves ? What private organizations help the 
handicapped ? 

15. What kinds of workers does your community lack—skilled car¬ 
penters, doctors, hotel keepers, or what? What is the reason for this 
lack ? How could it be remedied ? 

16. Some rural communities have no clergyman, no trained nurse, no 
doctor. Why do so many young people refuse to settle down in small 
communities to work ? What do you think should be done about this ? 

17. Show the steps by which one can fit himself for a given profession 
and for a certain trade. Let different members of the class investigate 
different occupations. 


CHAPTER XV 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 

1. Our Nation’s Wealth. In one of the government army 
reports this statement occurs: "The open waters of the Gulf of 
Alaska and southeastern Alaska are virtually Alaska’s richest 
possession. After these come the easily navigable, although 
open but five months of the year, rivers of the Yukon, Tanana, 
Kuskokwim, and Koyukuk.” In other words, according to the 
government report the open harbors and navigable rivers of the 
territory of Alaska, not its gold mines, are its chief wealth. 
But what is wealth? What do we mean by a person’s or a 
nation’s richest possession? If this government official was 
right in saying that Alaska’s open waters are its most valuable 
possession, we need to study a little into what is our nation’s 
wealth and how it can be added to or preserved in future years. 

2. Our Natural Resources are our Greatest Wealth. The 
soil, our forests, coal, iron, gold and other precious metals, rivers 
and harbors, are a part of what we call wealth. All these are 
intimately connected with our everyday life. Not only what we 
have to eat and wear and what we have for conveniences, like 
the telephone, furnace heat, and electricity, but how much 
these cost are dependent on our natural wealth. 

3. Our Soil one of our Most Precious Possessions. Fewunder- 
stand how precious is the soil that covers so much of the surface 
of the United States. Only the rare things which, once spoiled 
and squandered, can never be regained are really precious. Our 
soil is such a thing. " It took more centuries than you have hairs 
on your head to make a good soil.” A hundred years is longer 
than most of us will live, and in that time whole cities will be 
built; yet in these years not more than a teaspoonful of good soil 
will have been added to each square foot of the earth’s surface. 

365 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



366 

Soil is a rich blanket of fertility that covers certain parts of 
the earth. In some places our soil is two or three feet deep, but 
in many places it is even less than eight inches. Where there 
is no such blanket, there one finds deserts and desolation. 
Many people have supposed that any and every desert area, 


In the past the farmer has through lack of knowledge injured the soil by growing 

the same crops year after year. (Courtesy of William Steeple Davis) 

whether in our United States or in northern Africa, could be 
transformed into fields of grain and corn if only rivers could be 
turned from their courses to carry water to them. But while 
this is true of certain deserts, it is not true of others. It is be¬ 
cause the burning sands of many of the great deserts of the 
earth have no covering of fertile soil that they are, as their 
name implies, deserted places. 

4. We waste our soil. We have wasted our soil in two ways: 
( 1 ) by letting it be washed or blown away and ( 2 ) by wrong 
methods in growing crops. In both cases the waste has been 
almost unbelievable. Think what a wagon load is and then 



MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


367 

imagine 610,000,000 of these carts loaded with soil. This is the 
amount that is blown or washed into the rivers of the United 
States every year. "In the Piedmont section of North Carolina 
. . . the plant food and humus contained in the 4,000,000 tons 
of soil washed away every year are valued at $2,000,000. A 
single week of heavy rain is estimated to have impoverished 
the soils to the extent of more than $500,000.” One heavy rain 
will sometimes carry away from a plowed field more soil than 
a man with a team and wagon could restore in a week. The 
oceans are vast and deep and can swallow all the earth’s soil 
and still be little changed. But the United States cannot keep 
losing these 610,000,000 loads of soil and remain unchanged. 

Each owner of hillside or mountain land can do his part to 
prevent this waste by cutting timber wisely, by planting shrubs 
and trees where they will break the force of prevailing winds 
and hold back the soil, by proper plowing and cultivation. All 
the people of each state can do most by making laws to preserve 
forests, to build dams to hold back flood waters, and to find ade¬ 
quate means of preventing sand from drifting over fertile areas. 

5 . How Soil is wasted by Wrong Use. Expensive and diffi¬ 
cult as it will prove to prevent this washing and blowing away 
of fertile soil, it will be easier to accomplish than making good 
the waste due to wrong use of the soil. To understand how soil 
can be injured by wrong use one needs to know what makes 
soil fertile. 

Ten substances are necessary to every fertile soil: car¬ 
bon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potash, nitrogen, sul¬ 
phur, calcium, iron, and magnesium. When any one of 
these is absent the land is practically a desert. Outside of 
deserts, however, all but three of these substances are plen¬ 
tiful; these three—potash, phosphorus, and nitrogen— 
cause the statesmen of nations great concern. Today the 
greatest potash beds of the world lie in Germany, but our 
Department of Agriculture is constantly searching for new 
supplies. It has discovered that many rocks contain from 
6 to 8 per cent of potash and that by grinding these a large 
supply can be secured. It has also found that a water 


368 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


plant called kelp, which grows abundantly in many places 
on the coast, can be made to yield many million dollars’ 
worth of potash a year. By the time students read these 
words other valuable sources may have been discovered, 
for the men who are devoting their lives to the service of 
the nation through the Department of Agriculture never 
cease to investigate. 

Every statesman of foreign countries who has studied 
the American people has spoken of our restless energy, our 
lives of hard work. But even this is a quality for which 
we must partly thank our soil. Any race that has good red 
blood must have food that is full of phosphorus. Phos¬ 
phorus makes bone and sinew. When our food lacks phos¬ 
phorus the blood extracts it from the bones of our body 
and feeds on that until collapse comes. In less than fifty 
years’ time we have robbed the Mississippi Valley of a 
third of its phosphorus, and we have shortsightedly al¬ 
lowed private owners to appropriate the phosphate rocks, 
which they have mined and exported by the millions of 
tons. There are still good phosphate-rock deposits in 
Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah, and intelligent citizens have 
been fighting to keep these out of private hands. 

Nitrogen is something that exists in unlimited quantities 
in the air. There are certain plants which draw nitrogen 
from the air and return it to the soil. But soils are not all 
adapted to the growing of nitrogenous plants. In such 
cases farmers have purchased nitrate fertilizers to use, but 
the only great bed of nitrates is in Chile, which means that 
such fertilizer is expensive and uncertain. Therefore our 
scientists have long been experimenting with processes 
for making nitrate fertilizer directly from the air. They 
learned that nature snatches nitrogen and carries it to the 
soil by the combination of lightning and rain. Once this 
discovery was made, it was then the task of scientists to 
find a way of capturing by electricity the necessary nitro¬ 
gen to convert into nitrate fertilizer that could be sold to 
the farmer. The experiment has been tried successfully in 
Norway; and in the great Muscle Shoals plant on the Ten¬ 
nessee River our government was equipped, during the 
war, to do the same thing. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


369 



6. Preventing Wrong Use of Soil. To restore to worn-out 
soil phosphorus, nitrogen, potash, through fertilizers, is expen¬ 
sive. This must be done in many cases, and the scientists who 
find ways of securing these are helping the whole nation. But 
this is like giving medicine to a sick person. What is most 
needed is prevention. The work of prevention must be accom¬ 
plished by the people themselves with occasional help from the 


This field of cowpeas represents wealth, but without fertile soil and abun¬ 
dant rainfall hard work could not have produced it 

government. The people must learn to treat soil so that it will 
not be robbed of any of the elements that make it fertile. Much 
American soil that was once fertile has been injured and in 
some cases actually destroyed. On one farm which twenty-five 
years ago produced from 20 to 25 bales of cotton and from 800 
to 1000 bushels of corn, now not more than 8 or 9 bales of 
cotton and hardly enough corn to feed two horses can be pro¬ 
duced. Many farmers can tell a sadder story than this. This 
kind of waste of soil is due to both thoughtlessness and selfish¬ 
ness. To grow the same crop year after year will use up certain 
elements in the soil faster than they can be restored by nature. 

The proper rotation of crops is the prosaic magic which is 
to help the nation preserve the fertility of its soil. In a con- 




370 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


spicuous place in the city of Enterprise in Coffee County, 
Alabama, there has been erected an expensive monument to the 
boll weevil—the little pest that has destroyed millions of dol¬ 
lars’ worth of cotton. The devastation which the boll weevil 
brought to the cotton fields made the farmers turn to other 
crops, so that now, instead of wearing out the soil by the 
continuous growing of cotton, they plant other crop^ also. The 
cotton crop of Coffee County before the boll weevil came was 
worth one and a half million dollars. The peanut crop today is 
worth four and a half million dollars. 

7. How the Government helps secure the Right Use of Soil. 
To use the soil so wisely that it will yield the largest crops 
possible with the least injury should be the ambition of the 
nation. The government is prepared to help in these ways: 

1. By means of its bureau of soils it will test the soil of any farm 
and give advice as to the crops that can be grown to best advantage. 

2. Through its bureau of plant industry it tests out seeds and 
plants to determine which are most useful for different climates. This 
bureau also searches other parts of the world for food plants and 
fruits adapted to our soils and climate. One of the government’s experts 
recently spent a year in Africa traveling from the Cape to Cairo, search¬ 
ing for grasses that would grow in our Southern states, and for grains and 
fruits that had possibilities for American farmers. Durum wheat, 
introduced into the United States at a cost of about $50,000, now 
produces an annual crop estimated to be worth from $40,000,000 to 
$50,000,000. The sorghum plant, which cost us $2000 to introduce, 
now has an annual yield of about $40,000,000. 

3. Through its solar-radiation bureau it "measures” the amount of 
sun’s heat absorbed by the soil in different parts of the country at dif¬ 
ferent seasons to obtain the facts necessary to determine what crops 
are best adapted to the heat conditions in different sections. 

4. Through its bureau of entomology it studies ways and means of 
combating insect pests and diseases which destroy fruits and plants. 
A government official has estimated that each year it takes the entire 
labor of six hundred thousand farmers to produce what insects in the 
United States consume that year. Every crop and every section of the 
country has its pests. In Wisconsin within ten years insect pests and 
plant diseases had driven pea-growing out of one county and caused the 
abandonment of fruit-growing in another. Frightful as are such annual 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


37i 


losses, experts say they would be from two to three times as great if it 
were not for the preventive work done by the national and state depart¬ 
ments of agriculture. In helping combat the spread of the boll weevil, 
which annually destroys enough cotton to make nearly five million 
bales, the bureau of entomology at Washington has a special station in 
Louisiana. The citrus industry of California has been saved from the 
white scale by the introduction, through a government worker, of the 
Australian ladybird beetle, which has also been used in the vegetable¬ 
growing section of Virginia. It would be a long story that could only be 
told in a separate volume to set down all the pests that devastate the 
nation and what is being done to counteract them. 

5. Through its bureau of chemistry it tests fertilizers to determine 
their value for different soils. 

6. Through its weather bureau it is equipped to give farmers warning 
about sudden changes in weather that might prove destructive to crops. 

7. Through the geological survey it searches for potash and nitrate, 
one of its recent discoveries being two beds of potash salts in the 
southwest. It is also by means of the geological survey that it investi¬ 
gates the streams that are to be used for irrigation and tests the 
underground supply of water to furnish information that will aid 
farmers in digging artesian wells. 

The American people must use all such helps, else they 
will be outdistanced by other nations. Already Great Britain 
produces two and a half times as much wheat per acre as the 
United States, and Denmark three times as much. And Ger¬ 
many, although its area before the war was only equal to the 
three states of Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, produced "three 
fifths as much oats, four fifths as much barley, six times as 
many potatoes, and nine times as much rye” as the United 
States produced. Belgium has about 670 persons per square mile 
and the United States has only 35, yet Belgium so efficiently uses 
its soil that it exports food to Germany, England, and France. 

8. Fertile Soil and Rainfall. We have said that ten sub¬ 
stances are necessary to a fertile soil. There is still another— 
moisture. Plants can get the phosphorus, the potash, and the 
other substances necessary for their growth from the soil only 
through the moisture. In some parts of the United States all 
the necessary moisture is supplied by the rains; in other parts 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



the rains are insufficient. How to provide the equivalent of 
rain is not a task for the faint-hearted or easy-going. But 
nature has made a way possible, and we have begun to take 
advantage of it. This is by turning aside rivers and brooks from 
their course to flow through the waterless areas. This we call 
irrigation. What was once known as the great Boise desert— 

a quarter of a million 
acres of land so parched 
that they were useless 
even for sheep-grazing— 
is now a great garden. 
The hundreds of ditches 
that cross these acres, 
carrying water from the 
Boise River, are the magic 
that has brought about 
the transformation. By 
means of the Arrowrock 
Dam the surplus waters 
of late winter and early 
spring have been chained, 
and are unleashed only as 
needed through the hot, 
rainless days. Changing 
nature is costly business; 
but it has paid because 
soil is precious, and soil 
is precious because it 
means food. 

9 . The Nation’s Shortage in Rivers. If controlling the 
waters of rivers will turn waterless fertile areas into gardens, 
then it would seem that the people of the United States could 
continue to make gardens, for it has millions of acres of arid 
soil. But our supply of rivers is limited. Even if the people 
are willing to undergo the tremendous expense of making 
rivers useful, there are not enough to go around. It has been 


© Am. Agr. Chem. Co. 

One of the many irrigation ditches that 
stretch across our Western states 



MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


373 

estimated that there is sufficient water to irrigate only about 
one tenth of the arid regions of the United States. Of this one 
tenth we have already reclaimed about a sixth. Besides the 
arid regions there are many sections in which the rains fall at 
such long intervals that the soil becomes as parched as in a 
desert. There are often large supplies of water many hundreds 
of feet underground which can be brought to the surface by 
means of artesian wells. This can be distributed over large 
areas. But like the streams on the surface of the earth this 
underground water is probably limited, although no one knows 
just how much of it there is. Tests that have been made in 
some states show that what we call the water table has been 
lowered many feet. 

Already some of the states are making attempts to preserve 
both rivers and underground water. California has a law to 
prevent waste of artesian-well water and a state water commis¬ 
sion which supervises the ultilization of streams so that no 
water shall be wasted and none go unused. Unless the people 
speedily learn to conserve water in every way possible we may 
some day have in the United States what Spain once had, 
judges and courts whose whole time is given to regulating the 
use of water and settling disputes concerned with it: 

The supply of water was so limited that only a certain 
amount could be turned into a farm at a given time. In 
dry seasons there were many disputes and much bitterness 
among the farmers, for a whole year’s labor might be wiped 
out if by chance a farmer failed to secure his full share of 
the water. There was no appeal from the decision of the 
judges. "They were the masters of the water. In their 
hands remained the living of the families, the nourishment 
of the fields, the timely watering, the lack of which kills 
a harvest. ... On him who would be insolent with the* 
tribunal a fine was imposed; from him who had refused 
to comply with the verdict the water was taken away 
forever, and he must die of hunger.” [The court, called 
the tribunal of the waters, consisted of as many judges 
as there were canals.] 


374 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


10 . Protection of the Soil is the Affair of All the People. 
The farmers make up one third of our population; they produce 
one third of our national wealth and create one half of our com¬ 
merce. It was estimated that in 1920 about 60 per cent of the 
school pupils in the United States lived in either the open coun¬ 
try or in the communities which had a population of twenty- 
five hundred or less. In Kentucky 80 per cent of the population 
under twenty years of age lived in rural districts. The rural 
dwellers will actually till the soil, but both rural dwellers and 
city people will make the laws which help protect it. Both city 
dwellers and country dwellers will also be equally affected by 
the opening up of new lands and the reclaiming of swamp and 
desert lands. Every additional acre brought under cultivation, 
every additional bushel of corn or potatoes that an acre is made 
to produce, not only adds dollars to the income of the farmer 
but to that of the city worker also. Therefore both city people 
and country people should be as eager to learn "how to make 
the soil pay” as "how to increase the pay envelope.” 

11 . Each Person has a Part in making the Soil True Wealth. 
There is much that the people themselves can do outside of 
government channels. Each person can and should do some or 
all of the following things: 

1. Read at least one authoritative book or article about the agricul¬ 
tural condition of the nation and just what is being done to improve bad 
conditions. Talk with friends about what has been read. 

2. Attend a state or county agricultural fair or exhibit and learn as 
much as possible by looking and listening. 

3. When any important official from the Department of Agriculture 
at Washington or from your state or another state speaks in your 
community try to hear him. 

4. If you live in a city or factory town find out where the vegetables, 
fruits, milk, eggs, and meat come from—how much from your state and 
how much from other states. If the price of any one thing, like eggs or 
butter or oranges, is especially high try to learn the reason. 

5. Find out whether any agricultural studies are taught in the public 
schools of your community, and if so, whether the textbooks and methods 
are efficient. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


375 


6. Find out whether your library subscribes for a good agricultural 
magazine and has standard agricultural books. If such books are lacking 
find out the reason. 

7. Inform yourself as to whether your state has an agricultural college 
and an agricultural experiment station, whether your county has a county 
agent, and what bureaus and departments of the state are concerned 
with farms and crops. 

8. Find out if there is any idle or waste land in or near your com¬ 
munity that might be used for agricultural purposes, to whom this belongs, 
and the reasons for its being idle. Write to your state department of 
agriculture to learn how much of such land there is in the state, what is 
being done to bring it into use, and what might be done. 

9. When planning your life work consider taking up some occupation 
that has to do directly or indirectly with the soil. 

12 . Forests Another Source of National Wealth. Another 
part of our national wealth is our forests, but the prosperity 
which these have brought to us in the past can never be re¬ 
peated. When the first settlement was made in Jamestown in 
1607 a third of this stretch of continent was covered with the 
most magnificent forests of the globe, a million square miles of 
timberland. Today to find the great forests which once made 
every boy long for the adventure of exploring their unknown 
depths, one must go to the edge of the nation or into other 
countries. A student of history has said that nations die with 
their forests and quoted Palestine and northern Africa as in- 
tances. It is the forests that help keep moisture in the soil 
and nourish the springs and brooks that have their source in 
their midst. Once the forests are gone the feeders of lakes and 
rivers are gone also. Shrinking rivers in the course of time 
make deserts. We cannot effectively protect our soil unless we 
also protect our forests. 

Aside from the part that forests play in preserving the 
rivers, they are valuable for timber, which, in our country, has 
hundreds of uses. It has been right for us to use our forests, 
but not to waste them as every generation has done, from the 
early pioneers, who made clearings by burning acres of standing 
trees, to the present-day lumber companies, which often cut all 


376 


COMMUNITY CIVICS' 



© H. C. Tibbetts 

Once nearly a third of our continent consisted of great forests like this. The 
wealth that we have lost with our forests can never be regained 

the timber in a given area instead of leaving part to hold the 
forest for the growing of the young trees. Many of the things 
of which the American people have been wasteful can be 




MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


377 


bought from other countries, but with timber this is not the 
case. Every home is today more expensive to build because 
of the eighty million acres of cut-over land in which forests 
once waved. When cement or brick is used for the outside of 
buildings, the interior is of wood; and, except for iron and brass 
beds, practically all furniture is of wood. The fruit-growers, 
who ship fruit by railroad to distant markets, require wooden 
packing-cases, and the manufacturers of most kinds of goods 
for long-distance shipments also require wooden cases. The 
railroads are heavy users of wood, requiring many thousands of 
ties each year to maintain their roadbeds in good condition. 
Scarcity of timber will make houses, furniture, railroad ties, 
and even food more expensive. 

13 . Saving and making Forests. There are three things which 
have not been done sufficiently in the past and which must be 
done increasingly in the future: (i) cut timber economically, 
(2) prevent waste by forest fires, (3) constantly plant new 
forests. For more than a thousand years the city of Zurich, 
Switzerland, has owned a forest that has been so carefully 
tended that it has supplied a definite amount of timber each 
year during all these centuries, and it is today in better condi¬ 
tion than ever. The United States can protect its few remaining 
forests only by passing laws making it illegal for private owners 
to cut timber except in a way to preserve the forests, and re¬ 
quiring them to plant as fast as they cut. The waste by forest 
fires ought to be largely prevented. More stringent laws should 
be passed punishing campers, smokers, railroad companies, who 
are responsible for starting most of the fires. 

So great has been our waste through improper cutting and 
forest fires that merely to remedy these evils will not be suf¬ 
ficient. We must plant new forests. The best places on which 
to grow new forests are the eighty million acres on which were 
formerly great forests, but which are now desolate stretches, 
called cut-over land, covered with stumps, bushes, and weeds. 
The work of replanting has been begun, but state and national 
government bureaus have not always had the necessary power or 


378 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


funds with which to work effectively. Too many people have 
the idea that the moment government officials see what needs 
to be done they will proceed at once to the doing of it. Wash¬ 
ington officials are helpless until Congress passes the laws nec¬ 
essary to give them power to do certain things and the money 

with which to do them. 

A number of states 
have already begun to 
make forests as the re¬ 
sult of laws demanded 
by the people. Massa¬ 
chusetts in one season 
planted about 1,110,000 
seedlings and sold al¬ 
most as many at cost 
to private landowners. 
Nebraska is turning 
205,000 acres of sand 
hills along the Dismal 
River into a great pine 
forest. For thirty-five 
years the state tried 
unsuccessfully to make 
pine and spruce grow 
on this barren stretch, 
but not until a special 
nursery was started and 
experiments were made by experts was a tree evolved that would 
grow. Three billions of the Nebraska-made trees are being 
planted, 1,500,000 being set out the first year. The ranchers in 
the sand hills have imitated the state and are planting wind¬ 
breaks and wood lots. Louisiana has established reforestation 
clubs, calling on the boys on farms to replant 4,000,000 of the 
12,000,000 acres that have been stripped of forests. Pennsyl¬ 
vania has also begun to replant its "Great Desert” (the bare 
hillsides and mountains on which once grew luxuriant forests). 









MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 379 

14. How the Government is equipped to Help. The govern¬ 
ment is already equipped to save forests in these ways: 

i. In the Department of the Interior at Washington there are a 
forestry division and a national-park bureau. From time to time Con¬ 
gress appropriates money with which the government buys forest land 
to hold permanently, to preserve the forests and the streams which have 



© Keystone View Co. 


Planting new forests in New York State. Even the poorest person can be of 
some assistance in this kind of service 

their sources in them. The people of each state can call on Congress to 
buy those parts of the state’s forests which are in danger of destruction. 

2. Most states have either a separate forestry department or a 
bureau in some other department which oversees the building up and 
protection of state forests. Most states have set apart as state reserva¬ 
tions forest land which they care for scientifically. 

3. Pennsylvania was the first state to permit municipalities to own 
forests. This is one of the ways in which wooded areas too small for 
the state to bother with can be preserved. 




COMMUNITY CIVICS 


380 

15. What Private Citizens can do to preserve the Forests. 

Many people live where there are neither great forests nor small 
wooded areas and never realize how mountains are being laid 
bare and great trees being ruthlessly destroyed, but, as we have 
shown, every person is affected by the problem and therefore 
needs to make opportunities to help in some one or several of 
these ways: 

1. To conserve fuel of every kind. 

2. To install in the home some sort of simple apparatus for putting 
out fires. To see that chimneys are tight, gas pipes secure, lamps well 
cared for, matches and gasoline kept in safe places. 

3. Never to start a brush fire in time of drought, never to leave a 
camp fire until the last embers are out, never to smoke in dry woods. 

4. To help propose and support all laws to reduce fires: to adhere 
rigidly to laws in regard to putting fireproof roof on one’s house, build¬ 
ing the garage at a proper distance from the house, etc. 

5. To accept without complaint heavy taxes if these are necessary 
to secure adequate fire apparatus, firewardens for forest areas, and pay 
for fire fighters. 

6. To spread information about the state and national bureaus of 
forestry that supply spruce, pine, and other seedlings for planting. 

7. To find out at the opening of each session of the legislature 
whether any proposed bills relate to forests and, if these seem good, 
to write to one’s representative urging him to support them. 

8. To belong to some organization interested in forestry—perhaps 
the American Forestry Association—which keeps in touch with Con¬ 
gress and the state legislatures to support the right kind of bills. 

9. To plan to see some of the great forests in one’s traveling and to 
see also mountains which have been stripped of their forests. 

16. Our Rivers and Lakes are Part of our National Wealth. 

We have already shown how necessary our rivers, lakes, brooks, 
and springs are to the fertility of soil. But they are wealth not 
only because they water the soil which produces our food crops 
and meet the needs of the home, but because in many instances 
they represent pathways and power. When the government 
official referred to the open waters of Alaska as its richest pos¬ 
session, he was thinking of them as great highways. Our own 
Great Lakes, our Mississippi, Ohio, and many of our other 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 



rivers, are carriers of freight, without which the expense of 
transporting our products would be greatly increased. Like 
most other natural resources rivers cannot be made wealth 
without the expenditure of thought and money. In a recent 
year the army engineer under whose supervision river work 
is carried out recom¬ 
mended the expenditure 
of more than ten million 
dollars for this purpose. 

But large amounts of 
money wisely spent 
more than pay for them¬ 
selves in a few years. 

So useful are streams 
as highways that the 
people have multiplied 
them at times by turn¬ 
ing aside the waters of 
lakes and rivers to form 
canals sufficiently deep 
for the easy passage of 
freight barges and small 
boats. New York State 
has five hundred and 
twenty-five miles of 
canals owned by the 
state and operated and 
maintained at state expense. Great inland waterways from 
Portland, Maine, to Miami, Florida, and from Chicago to the 
Atlantic, are among the plans for the future which involve 
using rivers and connecting canals. 

17. How Rivers make Factories Possible. Because of rock- 
strewn beds and numerous waterfalls not all rivers are navi¬ 
gable, and many streams can never be used for either canals or 
irrigation. Many of these, however, are wealth for another 
reason: furnishing water power for the making of electricity 


Every rushing stream is a source of power that 
will turn factory wheels and thus save coal 







COMMUNITY CIVICS 


382 

and the turning of mill wheels. Men have not yet succeeded in 
harnessing the winds and waves, but they have learned how to 
get the same kind of power in two ways: (1) by the use of 
coal and water to produce steam and (2) by using the power of 
streams to make electricity, a kind of power that can be used 
when needed to turn factory wheels. 

An enormous amount of this power exists in the United 
States, but we are now using less than 6 per cent of it. A few 
years ago the people had a valuable water-power lesson. A 
great nitrate plant had been built on the Tennessee River, at a 
place called Muscle Shoals, where millions of horse power had 
been merrily going to waste year after year. For a distance of 
seventeen miles the river had torn its way through solid rock, 
making a fall of a hundred and thirty-three feet within that 
distance. But this nitrate plant was a war-time venture, and in 
1918 the government had no further use for it. An enterprising 
manufacturer therefore tried to buy the site from the govern¬ 
ment in order to put up a large power station to be used to make 
electricity to sell to manufacturing plants. Not until this offer 
was made had the people realized what a valuable part of the 
nation these seventeen miles of water were. 

How quick the people in some states are to make the most of 
their rivers is illustrated by Madera County in California, 
which recently started to build a twenty-eight-million-dollar 
dam and power station on the San Joaquin River. This meant 
a cost of $80 per person and a "promise to pay” of $2300 for 
each person in the county. Out of the 3128 votes cast on the 
proposition, only 25 were against it. 

18. How the People are making Rivers and Lakes Wealth. 
The chief means that the people of the United States are 
taking to conserve their wealth in water and to make it useful 
are these: 

1. By means of money appropriated by Congress and by the different 
state legislatures, great dams and reservoirs have been built to hold 
back the excess of water that pours from hills and mountains in the 
spring, to be used as needed during the dry season. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 383 

2. Congress and the states have passed laws regulating the use of the 
water from these reservoirs. 

3. Congress and the states have appropriated large sums of money 
for the purchase of wooded mountains and hills, which are the feeders 
of many streams. These are national or state parks and reservations. 

4. Many miles of. canals for transportation purposes have been built 
partly by funds appropriated by Congress and partly by state funds. 

5. The War Department is constantly at work dredging rivers and 
lakes to keep the channels deep enough and wide enough for the 
vessels that use them. 

6. States, counties, and cities appropriate money for purchasing lakes 
and ponds and for conduits and pumping-stations to carry the water 
for long distances to villages, towns, and cities for use in homes, work 
places, and hydrants. 

7. The geological survey, one of the bureaus of the Department of 
the Interior, has a water-gauging unit, which measures the depth M 
rivers and force of currents, and publishes these measurements. 

19 . Our Mineral Wealth. The soil of the United States yields 
other forms of wealth than the kind of fertility which makes 
food possible. All the minerals are part of the soil or buried 
within it. Of the thirty or more minerals that are found in the 
United States, the nation leads in thirteen. The clay soils that 
are used in making china and glassware and those used in 
making cement are a few of the minerals that have a large part 
to play in modern life, but those which have most to do with 
our prosperity are coal, petroleum (and natural gas), and iron. 
These are the three fates of our modern industrial life. 

20 . Coal One of our Priceless Possessions. During the winter 
of 1917 the people of the United States learned something about 
the value of coal, for many homes could neither buy it nor 
borrow it. The coal was at the mines, but the railroads were 
crowded with trains bearing soldiers and munitions to Atlantic 
ports; everything else, even the necessities, had to wait. The 
weather was cruelly cold, and there was great suffering. What 
happened in 1917 may happen again for a very different reason. 
Coal cannot be grown like wheat. It is a finished product. It took 
several millions of years for what is now in the earth to develop. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


384 

Therefore all the coal we and our descendants shall ever have is 
now in the earth, and what the earth contains is all too little. 
But useful as coal is to heat our homes and places of work, its 
greatest value is for another reason. 

Coal is wealth because it is a powerful force. "Our bridges, 
railways, skyscrapers, Panama Canal, factories, and mills are 



© Keystone View Co. 


These huge piles of coal that disfigure many miles of scenery do not seem like 
the kind of wealth that makes a nation prosperous, but they are 


greater than the works of all the other ages, notwithstanding 
the Pyramids of Egypt, the Colosseum at Rome, and the Par¬ 
thenon in Athens,” and all because of our plentiful supply of 
coal. Neither horses nor men have the strength necessary to 
raise steel supports for a forty-story skyscraper. And neither 
horses nor men give the speed necessary to transport iron ore 
from the mines and steel from the factories rapidly enough to 
meet the needs of the modern world. But coal has the power 
to give the strength and speed which we use every day in our 
factories and on our railroads. 




MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


385 


We have extensive coal lands in Alaska which are yet un¬ 
worked, but the greatest untouched coal field in the world is 
supposed to be in the province of Shansi in China. Someone 
has said that China has enough coal to last the entire world 
several thousand years, but nobody knows how deep are China’s 
coal veins and nobody knows how rapidly the world will draw 
on China’s coal supply. The pessimists tell us that our own 
coal supply will be exhausted in about fifty years if we continue 
to use coal at the present rate; the optimists say it will last 
for one hundred and fifty years. If the pessimists win many of 
the students of this book will live to see their country a coalless 
nation. Even the most optimistic admit that sooner or later the 
time will come when our supply will be exhausted. 

21. How All the People can help save Coal. These are the 
most important ways that the people individually and together 
can help save coal: 

1. Seeing that neither gas nor electric heat and light are wasted 
in the home. The wasteful use of gas is depleting the coal supply just as 
surely as the waste of coal itself, for gas is manufactured from coal. 
Wasting wood is also wasting coal, for the sooner the supply of wood is 
exhausted, the sooner larger supplies of coal will be needed. 

2. Learning how to regulate the stove or furnace which one uses 
in his home. The right kind of stoves for heating and cooking can 
be so regulated that only the right amount of heat is generated. With 
the same kind of furnace and the same amount of fuel one family will 
use twice as much coal as another. To remedy this waste requires a 
good deal of care. 

3. Doing everything possible to prevent destructive fires. Every 
building or forest destroyed by fire means so much less wood that can 
be used as fuel, and therefore more coal is required. 

4. Passing laws to require railroads and factories to consume their 
smoke. Smoke is not burned coal; it consists of unburned particles. 
Experts have shown that "annual savings of $315,000,000 in fuel costs 
and hauling power of locomotives could also be made if railroads were 
compelled to use certain devices to prevent waste of steam.” 

5. Finding out what your state is doing (1) about preventing forest 
fires, (2) about enacting laws to prevent smoke nuisance. To get this in¬ 
formation write to either your state representative or your senator. Find 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


386 

out just what the government at Washington is doing (1) about 
preventing forest fires, (2) about protecting coal lands from being 
used wastefully, (3) about the coal lands of Alaska. To get this 
information write to the national-park service, Department of the 
Interior, for its reports on the fire-prevention work of that department. 

6. Learning what such private organizations as the American Forestry 
Association and the chambers of commerce are doing to help prevent 
waste and, if practicable, becoming a member of some such association. 

7. Reading the latest and most authentic reports and books on con¬ 
servation. 

8. Telling to at least three other persons the most important facts 
that you have read. 

22 . Iron our Most Conspicuous Source of Wealth. "We do 

not work a mine, build a house, weave a fabric, prepare a meal, 
or cultivate an acre of ground under modern methods” without 
the aid of iron. It has been said that that nation ruled the 
earth that led in the production of coal and iron. For many 
years and at the present time the United States has led in this 
respect, not because its supply of coal and iron ore was greater 
than that of any other nation but because it mined more. Un¬ 
fortunately our supply of iron ore is limited. Even before our 
coal beds are exhausted our sources of iron ore will probably be 
gone. Yet our iron foundries and steel mills continue to make 
pig iron and steel articles not only for our own use but for ex¬ 
port to every part of the world. If we continue to export iron 
products at the present rate, we may soon have to import iron 
and steel products from other countries—perhaps from China, 
which, in one district, has rich deposits of about a hundred 
million tons. 

Since the outside world needs our iron products it would 
not seem wise to stop the export of these products simply be¬ 
cause at some time in the not distant future our iron ore will be 
exhausted. No nation can selfishly hoard the treasures that less 
fortunate nations need and not expect eventually to suffer for 
her selfishness. All that the ordinary person can do is to keep 
informed about our supply, our export trade, and the laws 
passed by the states and the nation affecting these matters 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 387 

23 . Petroleum one of our Newest Sources of Wealth. Another 
source of power that has helped transform the United States is 
an uninteresting-looking fluid called petroleum, which gushes out 
of the earth in places and in others is deeply embedded and can 
be brought to the surface only by means of pumps. This sub¬ 
stance is one of the nation’s most precious possessions, for it 
is a mineral oil that furnishes power for automobiles, ocean 
vessels, airships, and even railroad trains. The rapid change 
from horse-drawn vehicles to motor vehicles which has trans¬ 
formed the nation into a kind of fairyland is due to this oil and 
to a natural gas which is found in many of the areas near the 
oil wells. But like all the other precious things stowed away 
in our continent, the supplies of oil and gas are limited. 

Our waste in oil has been almost criminal. In a single oil 
field some of the wells have been allowed to burn, thereby 
wasting each day enough gas to "light ten cities the size of 
Washington,” or the equivalent of ten thousand barrels of 
oil. In 1891 Indiana passed a law providing for a gas in¬ 
spector "whose duty it is to prevent leakage in pipes, to 
decide upon the kind of pipes which may be used and the 
pressure they may carry, to provide for plugging of abandoned 
wells and for the prevention of waste of gas while extracting 
other products.” But no law can prevent oil or any other 
natural product from being wasted. It is only when the people 
are sufficiently informed about the value of our resources that 
wise laws can be enforced after they have been passed. Loui¬ 
siana and other states have in past years made laws similar to 
that of Indiana, but they have not been enforced. 

The first remedy, then, for waste of oil is laws that the 
people will see are enforced. The second remedy is intelligence 
and thrift in the use of gasoline in automobiles and the preven¬ 
tion of fires in garages, storage tanks, etc. The saving of a 
gallon or two of gasoline a week may seem like a small matter; 
but there are more than eleven million automobiles in the 
United States, and a two-gallon saving would mean twenty 
million gallons for the whole country. European statesmen 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


388 

have said that much of our success in the past has been due to 
our ability to see and think "big.” This is true, but it is equally 
true that for the future we must also be able to see and think 
"small.” 

24. Looking into the Future. The story of our limited supply 
of coal, iron, and oil is not a cheerful one, but there are several 
helpful factors. Of the unofficial groups of people who are at 
work on these problems the greatest hope lies in the scientists. 
They live a little ahead of the rest of the people. They are 
searching for new sources of power and new ways of con¬ 
serving coal, oil, iron. They do their searching in laboratories. 
Their work tables are strewn with diagrams, sketches, models, 
and long chains of figures. If we are ever able to use the sun’s 
heat or the power of the tides, or find a substitute for gasoline, 
it will be because of these men, who are always quietly at work. 
In 1922 Great Britain awarded to an American scientist its 
highest honor because of his invention of a process by means of 
which a hundred million barrels of crude oil could be saved 
each year. Most people are too much occupied with their own 
problems to note such items of news in the daily papers, but 
the young people who are making their plans for the future 
will look for this kind of news and perhaps find in it a sugges¬ 
tion for the work they will take up in future years. 

There is still another important factor in planning for the 
future—our government at Washington. We have already 
pointed out the ways in which government helps conserve nat¬ 
ural resources. But there is another kind of help that Washing¬ 
ton must give the people. The time may come when we shall 
be dependent on other countries for a considerable amount of 
our coal and iron. Through our State Department we already 
have made trade treaties with foreign countries by means of 
which we can buy and sell with them. But if at any time we do 
not have their good will, or if we are drawn into war with them, 
it will be difficult or impossible to buy from them. To secure 
the good will of foreign countries is largely the work of our 
ministers, consuls, President, and Secretary of State. But Con- 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


389 



gress has an important part in winning the good will of other 
nations through the trade and shipping laws that it passes. Any 
act of ours that injures another nation or is in any way unjust 
may be making trouble for us or our descendants in the future. 

25 . Part of the Na¬ 
tion’s Wealth consists 
of Buildings and Ma¬ 
chinery. The first and 
most important part of 
a nation’s wealth con¬ 
sists of its natural re¬ 
sources. We have seen, 
however, that from 1607 
to the present day the 
people in America have 
been rapidly changing 
these natural resources 
in many ways. Where 
once were forests and 
plains now are cities 
full of buildings. These 
represent natural re¬ 
sources plus hard work 
and ideas. They are 
transformed natural re¬ 
sources. According to 
their value these trans¬ 
formed natural re¬ 
sources are wealth or waste. Most people regarded the chain 
of buildings which for many years were used as breweries 
and saloons as a part of the nation’s waste. But in one sense 
all well-built structures with modern equipment are wealth. 
Our buildings of wood, brick, cement, steel, stone, are, then, 
a part of our national wealth. 

Not only the buildings themselves but the machinery and 
other equipment within them are a part of the nation’s wealth. 


© Keystone View Co. 

One of the buildings at a coal mine. Why is 
this a part of the wealth of the nation ? 






390 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


So great is this part that it cannot easily be estimated. We 
have complicated machinery that can make every article of 
clothing and adornment from shoes to hair nets; every kind of 
furniture from carpets and wall paper to clocks and delicate 
china; machinery that can make hundreds of articles necessary 
for food — from flour, crackers, and spices to meats, cakes, and 
pies. If all these were suddenly swept away, the nation’s life 
would be set back more than a hundred years. 

26 . How Waste of Buildings, Machinery, etc. can be pre¬ 
vented. All this transformed wealth can be wasted by neglect 
and ignorance. Misuse and neglect have laid a heavy tax on our 
wealth. The houses occupied by tenants wear out faster than 
those occupied by the owners. This is because few tenants are 
as careful of another’s possessions as they are of their own. 
They do not realize that they are wasting an important part of 
the wealth of the nation. When a person injures the house he 
lives in he is making himself and the whole nation poorer. No 
person can be anything but a temporary owner of a house or a 
factory; the nation is the permanent owner. Anything that in¬ 
jures or destroys a good building is injuring or destroying what 
is a part of the wealth of all the people. Even the owners of 
houses, barns, and factories often so little understand the value 
of property that they neglect to make repairs and improve¬ 
ments when needed. So widespread has this neglect been that 
during a period of twenty years the value of farm buildings in 
all the middle-eastern states and all but one of the New Eng¬ 
land states decreased conspicuously. An especially vicious kind 
of waste of our wealth of buildings and machinery is the delib¬ 
erate destruction of them by anarchists and mobs of strikers. 
Whether strikes are right or wrong, strikers are never right in 
destroying property. Property is something too valuable to be 
destroyed for any reason except the public good. 

Some of the other ways by which the wealth of buildings, 
machinery, railroads, telephones, is wasted are (i) fires, (2) 
floods and storms, (3) rats and mice, (4) wrong laws or lack of 
laws. Not all of these destructive forces can be wholly con- 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


39i 


trolled or prevented by us, but most of them can be. It is only 
our thoughtlessness or ignorance that has caused these wastes 
to increase by leaps and bounds. 

1. In some years we destroy by fire more property than we create. 
In one of the years when almost no building of dwellings or factories 
was carried on, fire destroyed $57,000,000 worth of buildings and equip¬ 
ment. At this rate in a comparatively short time destruction would 
gain on construction. At present many measures are being used to 
prevent and fight fires : 

a. Every fire-insurance company conducts a campaign of informa¬ 
tion in regard to ways and means of preventing fires. 

b. All schools teach the menace of fire, how to put out a newly 
started fire, and how to call the fire department. 

c. Most communities have fire departments. 

d. Designers and manufacturers of fire apparatus are constantly 
studying out new ways of making more effective apparatus. 

e. The states and the nation have forestry departments which employ 
wardens and guards to prevent forest fires. 

/. States have various laws about rubbish, the transporting of dyna¬ 
mite, the protection of smoke stacks of locomotive engines to prevent 
sparks from setting fires. 

2. Floods and storms every year reap a vast harvest of mutilated or 
destroyed property. Laws cannot prevent heavy rains or hurricanes, 
neither can they ward off lightning. But levees can be built to prevent 
swollen rivers from overflowing, dams can be built so securely that 
they will not give way before ice and floods, roofs can be built to make 
them partially resistant to lightning. These preventives can be secured 
partly through legislation by states and the nation and partly by private 
enterprise. The state or the nation which pays for the making of a dam 
or of a levee has to let this work out to private contractors, and if these 
do not do efficient, honest work, the levees and the dams give way and 
destroy lives and property. 

3. Among the strangest enemies of our wealth are rats and mice. It 
has been estimated that it costs about $7 per person to support the rats 
in the United States. Rats consume and spoil large quantities of food 
and destroy buildings by starting fires. 

4. The right kind of laws in regard to fireproof shingles, the use of 
gasoline, the licensing of engineers, strength of building materials, and 
the proper fire-extinguishing equipment for communities will do much 
to conserve property. 


392 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


27 . Manufactured Goods a Part of our National Wealth. In 

addition to the buildings and machinery that constitute a part 
of our national wealth there is a vast accumulation of such man¬ 
ufactured goods as shoes, stoves, and cloth. In 1920 the value 
of these for the whole nation was $63,000,000,000. To produce 
this kind of wealth, as in the case of buildings and machinery, 
we had to deplete somewhat our natural resources, so that a 
part of every dollar of manufactured wealth had to be sub¬ 
tracted from each dollar’s worth of natural resources. 

But not everything that is manufactured is wealth. The 
manufacturing industry that in 1921 ranked first in the United 
States was the automobile industry. In that year there were 
10,524,394 automobiles of every kind and description in the 
United States. Whether or not these were true wealth depended 
on their use. Those which were helps to work life were a part 
of our wealth; those which were the means of bringing health 
and genuine enjoyment to their owners or users were also real 
wealth. But those which neither helped the work life of the 
nation nor contributed genuine pleasure to their users were 
waste, not wealth. Ten million automobiles in the hands of 
the wrong persons may help bring hard times. It is more im¬ 
portant for most of us that our milkman, our grocer, our laun- 
dryman, have automobiles than that we ourselves have them. 
The touring cars owned by farmers who do not have adequate 
farm tools, the pleasure cars owned by families which do not 
pay their debts, are waste, not wealth. 

28 . Each Individual helps decide whether Manufactured 
Goods shall be Wealth or Waste. If families spend money to 
buy automobiles which they cannot afford, they are keeping 
in automobile factories workers who ought to be on farms pro¬ 
ducing food or in factories which make the necessities of life. 
A shortage of men on farms or in cotton factories or shoe fac¬ 
tories means that while the price of automobiles may go down, 
the price of food, clothing, and shoes must go up. But even 
food, clothing, and shoes may be waste instead of wealth. When 
people buy more clothing than they need, when they load their 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


393 



tables with more food than can be eaten, workers are being 
taken from farms and factories which produce necessities, and 
valuable materials are being wasted. 

In their thoughtlessness the American people have demanded 
constant change and variety instead of quality and efficiency. 
A large woolen company claimed to have produced one year 


You may not have thought of barns, silos, and tractors as wealth, but they are, 
if properly used. The owner of the property shown above possesses true wealth 

"more than thirty thousand different weaves and patterns of 
fine woolen and worsted cloth.” During the years immediately 
following the war American women dressed so simply and inex¬ 
pensively that, according to the estimate made by the French 
minister of commerce, France sold the United States about 
thirty-seven million dollars’ worth less of lace, beads, feathers, 
and other frills. But in ordinary times there is no limit to the 
number of styles that can be made. Thrift for the nation begins 
with such fundamentals. To save dollars is not sufficient. One 
must see to it that these savings are not spent for the satisfying 
of mere whims or in the making of luxuries when there is a 
scarcity of necessities. 







394 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


29 . Our Means of Transportation and Commerce a Part of 
our Wealth. Another part of our national wealth consists of the 
connecting links—railroads, telephone and telegraph systems, 
roads. They are really a part of our manufactured wealth, but 
they are also the magic tools which make fertile fields, produc¬ 
tive mines, humming factories possible. There is never a mo¬ 
ment day or night when hundreds of trains are not speeding 
north, south, east, and west. Food and fuel are being distrib¬ 
uted every hour of every day except in those black weeks when 
strikes hold sway. Neither the isolated farms, the little factory 
towns, nor the great cities could exist as they are organized to¬ 
day without these means of transportation. 

Railroads transport raw materials, finished goods, men sell¬ 
ing goods, men buying goods, and letters that buy and sell. 
But it is because a man in San Francisco can talk with an 
office in Chicago whenever he chooses, and because any person 
in any part of the nation can either send his voice or his mes¬ 
sage over wires to any other part of the nation, that the rail¬ 
roads can be so useful. The telephone, the telegraph, and the 
wireless seem things too wonderful to be handled by ordinary 
men in the ordinary course of a day’s work. But they are here 
for all of us, from the humblest worker to the greatest. The 
message for one travels as fast as the message for the other. 
Orders, contracts, money, all travel with the speed of the wind. 

While such helps as the railroads, the telegraph, the tele¬ 
phone, the wireless, are not priceless like the soil, which could 
never be replaced, yet they are so valuable a part of our life 
today that if they should be suddenly wiped out the whole 
world would suffer a greater disaster than that of the World 
War. One set of factories in a New England state uses each 
year all the cotton grown on 195,000 acres in Southern states 
and all the wool from 2,366,400 sheep in South America and 
Australia. It is only because of uninterrupted steamship, rail¬ 
road, telegraph, telephone, and cable service that these mills can 
keep their wheels turning. New York City uses for food each 
year the grain from 2,140,162 acres in the West and South, and 



© Clark Equipment Co. 


A Chicago business man offered a prize for the best painting illustrating the 
spirit of transportation. This picture by Jonas Lie was one of the pictures 
submitted by famous artists. Study the picture carefully to see how much 
it can tell about modern transportation 




COMMUNITY CIVICS 


396 

if trains did not by day and by night make their way with all 
speed to the city great hardship would result. 

It is important that nothing be allowed either to destroy or 
to injure such wealth. It has been made from the iron ore, 
copper, timber, and other products of our soils, transformed 
by means of the inventions, toil, and savings of unknown thou¬ 
sands of men and women. To treat it with disrespect is to treat 
with disrespect the work of many generations of men who gave 
to the nation the best of which they were capable. Few of 
those who today profit by all these helps have had any part in 
making them. Their part is to use them effectively, respect¬ 
fully, and pass them on improved, if possible. 

The government does not make these tools. It is the pri¬ 
vate citizens who (1) work out the inventions; (2) raise the 
money to build railroads, make locomotives, or finance steam¬ 
ship lines; (3) form companies for the running and manage¬ 
ment of them. It is the government, however, which (1) makes 
inventions profitable through the patents which it issues; 
(2) regulates the use of these means of transportation so that 
all parts of the country shall receive the same kind of service 
and so that rates shall be fair. 

30 . Roads connecting Communities and States are Wealth. 
Compared with such highways as the railroads, ordinary roads 
seem commonplace, but they are an indispensable part of the 
• chain that binds the nation together. It was the conviction that 
wagon roads could never be built on the Rocky Mountains that 
made some of our early people say that west of the mountains 
another nation would be formed. The news of the first passage 
of a wagon to the Oregon country was as unbelievable as that 
of the first wireless message in recent years. Not until one has 
ridden by automobile all through the daylight hours of one day, 
and has resumed his journey the next day—passing through 
towns, cities, villages, crossing rivers, mountains, county lines, 
and state lines, and still finding ahead of him seemingly endless 
stretches of smooth hard road—can he fully understand that 
the roads of the nation are an important part of its wealth. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


397 

Each year they are being extended, remade, rebridged, reoiled, 
at a cost that would be staggering if every dollar spent did not 
mean a return of many dollars in taxable wealth. Unlike the 
other forms of wealth that we have mentioned, the government 
has been concerned with their making, repairing, and mainte¬ 
nance in these ways: 

1. Local communities make and keep in repair their streets and 
roads. 

2. Counties often build and maintain roads connecting the communi¬ 
ties that lie within them. 

3. States often assist in building and maintaining certain main state 
highways. 

4. The government at Washington under certain conditions assists 
the states in building roads. 

Of the six hundred and fifteen miles of road contracted for in 
New York State in a recent year the money was obtained in 
this way: 

State.$13,600,000 

Nation. 6,400,000 

County . 6,100,000 

Communities. 1,300,000 

Roads must keep pace with railroads, automobiles, and tele¬ 
graph and telephone wires. It is useless for the farmer and the 
lumberman to have instant connection by telephone with dis¬ 
tant markets and to own automobile trucks unless they can 
speedily get their goods over the roads. Road-making has been 
slow because whatever is left to government to attend to goes 
more slowly than the things which the people do unofficially. 
The people in their work life set a pace with which the govern¬ 
ment has difficulty in keeping up. If the people had waited for 
the government to develop the automobile, the old-time dirt 
roads would still answer our purpose. 

31 . America’s Ports make her a Great Nation. The railroads, 
the roads, the telegraph, and the telephone connect each section 
of the United States with every other section and also with 







398 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

Canada and Mexico. But there would be less need of our rail¬ 
road and telephone and telegraph service if we could not send our 
manufactured goods to other continents and get from them many 
things. This we accomplish through our ports, our cable lines, 
and the wireless. If an American had witnessed the mad joy of 
the Poles in 1920 when their troops made their way to its one 


Unless there are good roads stretching from cotton fields to ginning plants aild 
from ginning plants to railroad, there can be no prosperity 

little port of Putzig on the Baltic Sea and took formal posses¬ 
sion of it in the name of the new nation, they would have sud¬ 
denly realized what a wealth of seacoast the United States has. 
The Polish troops, led by the nation’s most distinguished gen¬ 
eral, had marched for days over roads hung with garlands and 
strewn with flowers. When finally, at midday of February 10, 
the little seacoast town was reached the bells were rung and the 
guns fired, and all Poland celebrated. To the very edge of the 
sea the troops marched; and there, in the presence of ten thou¬ 
sand people, the general, alone, rode down into the water, and, 






MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


399 


drawing from his finger a ring, flung it far out into the sea, 
saying in a voice that the wind caught and carried back to the 
listening throngs, "As Venice so symbolized its marriage with 
the Adriatic, so we Poles symbolize our marriage with our 
beloved Baltic Sea.” Again the guns thundered, the bells rang, 
and the people cheered. 

The little seaport that caused such rejoicing to a whole 
nation did not even open on one of the great oceans. The 
United States, with an ocean to the east and west of her, pre¬ 
sents to Europe and Asia open doors that cannot be shut except 
by the expensive device of mines and gunboats or by the equally 
expensive neglect of her citizens in making the harbors available 
for the big merchant-marine vessels. The United States has 
miles of rockbound coast, dangerous shoals, and many miles 
without inlets suitable for harbors, but it also has more than 
seventy harbors, some of which are the finest in the world. 

32 . A Nation’s Ports are not always Wealth. But like wheat 
and corn and soil, harbors are not wealth unless properly devel¬ 
oped. A port that twenty years ago was adequate may today 
have channels not deep enough for the largest vessels, docks 
with facilities not equal to the demand of shipping. Such ports 
are not true wealth. During the World War when the transport 
Leviathan needed overhauling it was sent to Liverpool, for 
there was no port in the United States which then had adequate 
facilities for doing this. One American port had a dry dock 
large enough, but the channel leading to the dock was too nar¬ 
row to allow the vessel to pass. 

The port of New York is the largest in the world, in both 
the length of its water front and the amount of shipping that 
it can harbor. It is second only to London in the value of 
foreign trade. By encircling Manhattan—the lower part of 
New York City—with two arms of the Hudson River, nature 
made a present to the city of the kind of advantages which have 
cost London, Liverpool, and Glasgow millions of dollars to 
create artificially. Important as the port of New York had been 
previous to 1921, from that year it became even more conspicu- 


400 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


ous, for in that year a compact was signed, combining the 
Jersey City and the New York City port areas into one Port of 
New York District, which gives to the port a water front of 
eight hundred miles. Government experts called the compact 
"one of the greatest historical events since George Washington 
took his oath of office.” Whatever improves the nation’s larg¬ 
est port sooner or later inevitably affects the whole nation. 



© Underwood & Underwood 


Harbors are not wealth unless they have deep channels, adequate docks, and 
proper government regulations about rentals for wharfage etc. 


Each port is important for some special reason. The port 
of Boston is the largest wool port in the country, importing 
more than half of the nation’s supply. Galveston is the largest 
cotton port of the United States. New Orleans, the port nearest 
to Cuba, Jamaica, the Caribbean Islands, and Mexico, is one 
of the great ocean gateways for international trade. In 1918 
no vessel engaged in the coast-to-coast trade entered the port 
of New Orleans; now eleven different companies with such 
service touch this port. Thirty-five years ago Seattle was a 
struggling frontier settlement of four thousand people, with 












MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 401 

one crude wharf and no outside trade; today it is one of 
America’s chief Pacific ports and the most important link with 
Alaska. San Francisco’s great harbor makes the city the chief 
connecting link with all of Asia and also with the Atlantic coast 
by way of the Panama Canal. 

33 . Who takes Care of our Ports? Ports, like streets, do not 
take care of themselves. In a recent year the Pacific ports 
were spending $100,000,000 on their docks and channels. Never 



© Keystone View Co. 

Russia has some of the richest soil in the world, yet the Russian farmers are 
poor because transportation and port facilities are inadequate and because 
government has failed to help them 

was there a time when our ports were of such importance, but 
the people have been slow to realize that well-dredged channels, 
adequate wharf facilities, expert pilotage, proper rates for use 
of wharves, proper regulations of longshoremen, who load and 
unload vessels, cannot be secured without effort on the part of 
somebody. And now the people are learning that they must 
demand of Congress and their state legislatures proper super¬ 
vision and the expenditure of enough money to make their ports 
efficient. In some cases the state develops the port, owns the 
docks, and rents these to private companies and to the city; in 
other cases the state does part of the work and owns part of the 




402 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


docks, and the city owns the rest. In all cases there has to be 
state control, either directly through a board of harbor and land 
commissioners appointed by the governor, or indirectly through 
a law passed by the legislature giving the city control of it. 
All the water-front facilities of San Francisco are owned by the 
state of California and are controlled and operated by the 
board of state harbor commissioners, consisting of three mem¬ 
bers appointed by the governor. In every case it is the voters 
through their state legislature who really have the responsi¬ 
bility for seeing that their port is efficient. In Brooklyn re¬ 
cently there was still being used the pier from which Fulton’s 
steamboat sailed. That such a thing could be possible today in 
a wide-awake city seems hardly believable. It could happen 
only because most of the people knew little about the port that 
stands at the head of the world’s ports. 

The only ways that each person can do his part to make the 
ports of the nation a true source of wealth are 

1. To be informed as to the main facts of the port nearest his home 
and of the port through which the products of his section are sent to 
other countries and the materials used in his section are brought from 
foreign countries. 

2. To know the procedure when a vessel from South Africa or China 
wishes to unload in San Francisco or New York a cargo of goat skins or 
tea. How does it find a wharf ? Does it pay for the use of the wharf ? 
If so, how much ? Can any and every vessel find a wharf at which to 
unload? How does it find men to unload its cargo? If it expects to 
take a return cargo, how does it secure this? 

3. To learn what part the state is now having in the control of the 
port, what part the nearest town or city has, and what part private 
companies have. 

4. To learn what the prominent business men of the state think 
about the efficiency of the port, and what changes they recommend. 

5. To be ready to write letters to your legislatures, urging them to 
support bills for the improvement of the port. Someone said that "had 
two thousand men, knowing what was at stake, written or telephoned to 
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment” (in New York City), the 
compact for uniting the ports of New York and Jersey City would 
have been made many years earlier. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


403 


34. The Banks a Necessity in making National Wealth. We 
think of work life as pervaded by an atmosphere of restlessness 
and haste; the railroads, motor trucks, the telegraph, the long¬ 
distance telephone, the wireless, cable lines, and steamships, all 
are parts of the everyday equipment of the working world. But 
we often forget that the banks have an important place in this 
hustling, pushing world. Their dignified, almost silent interiors, 
their short "open” hours, all suggest slowness and deliberation. 
But like the wireless and the telegraph, they are a part of the 
necessary machinery that helps hasten the world’s work. Al¬ 
though all banks are open to the public only certain hours 
during the day, many are really never closed. Day and night 
shifts of mail clerks, telegraph operators, and other helpers 
never let the work of keeping touch with the money side of the 
nation stop for an instant. 

The money of the nation and of the world is never still; it 
moves from town to town, from seacoast to seacoast, from con¬ 
tinent to continent. The money that the California fruit¬ 
grower receives on Saturday, by Monday may be in London or 
Buenos Aires. Because the wheat of America, the diamonds of 
South Africa, the rugs of Persia, the tea of Japan, travel fast 
and far money must go even more swiftly. Of course money 
does not actually travel by cable and telegraph, but the thing 
that money stands for is sent over the wires. The thing that 
can travel so swiftly is "credit,” or a pledge. Most of the money 
of the nation can be found each night in the vaults of the banks. 
The money goes from bank to bank as the people in one place 
trade with those in another, but credit in the form of checks 
and drafts sent through the mail or over the telegraph wire 
precedes the actual money. 

Railroads, the telegraph and telephone, steamship lines, fac¬ 
tories, all would be helpless to make prosperity without the 
aid of the banks. But banks would be only interesting buildings 
if it were not for the steady stream of money that flows into 
them. All the money comes from the people. There are two 
kinds of banks: (1) those which take the savings of people, 


404 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


lend these to businesses and industry, and thereby earn interest 
to pay to the depositors, and (2) those which receive the money 
of people to hold until they "check it out” to pay their bills, 
enough of this money remaining to enable the bank to lend large 
sums to businesses and industries and thereby earn more than 
enough to pay for the cost of service rendered the depositors. 
It is the people, then, who hold the secret of railroads, steam¬ 
ships, factories, in their hands. Every dollar put into a bank is 
helping fields to be tilled, factory wheels to be turned, coal to 
be mined, trains and automobiles to be hastened on their way. 
And of course there would not be dollars to put into banks if the 
people were not hard workers. It is the hours of extra hard 
work that make it possible for a man to produce more than he 
needs for his day-to-day wants. One might almost say, there¬ 
fore, that banks are filled with hard work. 

There seems to be no escape in the nation for the people 
who want in some way to do away with hard work. In every 
direction they will find doors and gates over which are the 
invisible words, "The Place of Hard Work.” 

Although it is the people who fill the banks with money, gov¬ 
ernment has much to do with them: 

1. The gold, silver, and other coins used by the bank are made in 
United States mints. The bureau of engraving and printing (a sub¬ 
division of the Treasury Department) prints all paper money. 

2. Every bank must receive a charter from either the United States 
government or from the state in which it is located. All savings banks 
are chartered by the states; national banks are chartered by the national 
government and state banks by the states. The nation or the state can 
cancel any charter which it has issued if the bank does not observe the 
laws applying to it. 

3. There are twelve Federal Reserve banks in the United States, in 
which the government deposits some of its funds. This money can be 
lent to local banks, which comply with certain requirements specified by 
Congress, when they are in need of help. Such banks are known as 
members of the Federal Reserve system. The government banks can¬ 
not give member banks money, they can only lend them money in case 
of need if sufficient funds are available. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 405 

35 . The Money Wealth of the Nation. There will always be 
a fascination to Americans in the richest men of the nation; 
that is, the men who reckon their wealth by millions of dollars 
instead of by the hundreds. But money alone is never power. 
The man with millions cannot buy what he wants unless the 
things he happens to want are for sale. In many countries of 
Europe, after the war, many people found that neither gold nor 
silver nor precious jewels could buy bread or shoes because 
there was not enough bread or shoes for half the people.^Money 
itself is wealth only when it can be exchanged for something 
desired. In the interior of Africa, in the desert of Gobi, in the 
arctic and antarctic regions, millions are not worth pennies: 
a man’s only wealth in such places is health, strength, courage. 
A person’s wealth should never be measured in terms of dollars, 
but in terms of what dollars will buy. 

36 . Why Money in America is Wealth. In America and in 
some of the countries of Europe, however, money is today true 
wealth, because most of the things which men want can be had 
for money: houses, automobiles, journeys to beautiful and 
interesting places, beautiful clothes, and helpers. But in 1920 
a million dollars did not represent anywhere near so much 
wealth as it did in 1910. There was a shortage of houses and 
a shortage of men willing to build houses, therefore many a 
man with plenty of money had to go without the kind of home 
he wanted. At times he could not run his automobile because 
there was a shortage of gasoline. He could not even keep his 
home warm, because there was a shortage of coal. He had to 
do for himself many things that he wished to pay someone to 
do for him, because there was a shortage of workers. 

In 1922 millions of dollars could not have bought a person the 
pleasures of traveling at ease in Russia, since where once there 
had been railroad and street-car conveniences and luxurious ho¬ 
tels, now there were only worn-out railroads, inadequate street 
cars, and closed hotels. Russia was full of workers who did 
not work. In other words, money was not wealth because the 
things one wanted could not be had for money. The things that 


406 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


we want can be purchased only if there have been workers 
enough to make the things we want and transportation facilities 
to bring these to us. 

We might enumerate a long list of things that money cannot 
buy because of lack of supply. For several years in many cities 
there was never enough cream in any one day to supply all the 
people who wanted to buy cream. This has often been true of 
certain kinds of meat, vegetables, and fruit. Our grazing-lands 
have been depleted so rapidly that there are not enough acres to 
support as many cattle and sheep as formerly, hence the supply 
of meat has decreased as our population has increased. Farmers 
find it difficult to get enough workers who are willing to un¬ 
dergo the long hours and hard work of the farm, so that even 
when there is land enough to support live stock and to grow the 
needed vegetables and fruit, there are frequently not enough 
workers. 

Even if there is fertile land and plenty of workers, there 
may be a scarcity of foodstuffs because government help has 
been inadequate. For instance, if county, state, and nation 
have not done their part in making good roads from farms to 
railroads, if the national government has allowed railroads to 
charge excessive freight rates or to arrange such poor sched¬ 
ules for trains that milk and cream are held en route too long, 
or if the laws dealing with the cold storage of meats are not 
enforced, there may be a scarcity of these things. Poor roads, 
excessive freight charges, poor train service, improper cold- 
storage conditions—any one of these things can make a short¬ 
age of food in town or city. 

37 . What has happened when Money will not buy what we 
Want. The only reason that any one thrills at the mention of 
Americans who have millions of dollars is because dollars in 
America have been able to buy so many of the things that we 
wanted. We could buy these things for the reasons that we have 
explained in Chapter II: the people of America have been hard 
workers and have been quick to use new ideas and by the combi¬ 
nation of inventions and hard work have transformed the soil, 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


407 


forests, and other natural wealth into food, houses, furniture, 
and a thousand useful things; and when special help was needed 
they have organized government bureaus and departments to 
give this help. Therefore, when money will not buy what it 
once did or what we want it to buy, one or several of the follow¬ 
ing things has happened: 

1. There are not enough natural resources (fertile soil, forests, or 
navigable rivers), or else these resources have been wasted. 

2. There are not enough workers. 

3. While there may be enough persons at work, there are too few 

inventors, organizers, and skilled workers. » 

4. While there may be enough of both natural resources and skilled 
workers, there is not enough of the right kind of government help. 

Any one or all of these reasons would make it difficult or impos¬ 
sible for a millionaire to exchange his money for the things 
he desired. 

Since money has in itself no magic, every person needs to know 
(1) what the natural resources of the nation are, (2) whether 
the nation has enough of the right kind of workers, and (3) 
whether the government is giving the right kind of assistance. 
It is, of course, of greater importance to the man who counts his 
dollars in hundreds instead of in thousands or millions, for if 
there is a scarcity of any of the things necessary to comfort, the 
man with millions can offer more for them and thus make it 
necessary for the poorer man to go without. 

38. How Foreign Countries can make our Money Shrink. 
As we have seen, dollars are wealth to a person only if he lives 
in a country in which there are many natural resources, many 
skilled workers, and an efficient government. But if there were 
not farmers in Australia growing wool, miners in Chile digging 
nitrate, workers in China raising tea, rug-makers in Persia and 
Turkey making rugs, miners in South Africa digging diamonds, 
then our money could not purchase some of the things that we 
need or want, for the United States does not produce enough of 
such things as wool, nitrate, rugs, and diamonds, and does not 
grow any tea. So whether the dollars of the American are real 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


408 

wealth depends also somewhat on the workers and the govern¬ 
ments of even the most distant parts of the world. This means 
that the American who wants to acquire wealth must be inter¬ 
ested, if for no other reason than a wholly selfish one, in what 
the workers and government of other countries are doing. 

Sometimes we have the money with which to buy tea, spices, 
perfumes, diamonds, and rugs from Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
and the people of these countries are anxious to sell to us, 
but cannot do so. This happened in 1921 and 1922. Europeans 
needed our wheat and machinery, and we had wheat and ma¬ 
chinery to exchange, but something had happened to Europe’s 
money. It had shrunk so that in some countries what had pre¬ 
viously been equivalent to one dollar was worth only about 
twenty-five cents. Therefore for $10,000 worth of wheat they 
would have to send us $40,000 worth of rugs or diamonds or what¬ 
ever they had. In some countries the shrinkage had been even 
greater. On December 10, 1921, an American traveler in Vienna 
exchanged an American dollar bill for $2000 worth of Austrian 
money. To save themselves from starving, these nations did 
buy food from us at these high prices, but they bought only 
what was absolutely necessary. 

39 . War makes Money Shrink. The shrinking of the money 
of Europe was due to the reason that we gave above when we 
said that our money in America was wealth only if we had a 
large number of people making the things that we wanted. For 
several years the European nations had been at war—part of 
the people making guns, shells, and poison gases, and the rest 
using these to destroy buildings, ships, soil, and trees and to 
kill people. When the fighting ceased there was only waste to 
show for these years of hard work. The fact that one dollar of 
our money was equal to $2000 worth of Austrian money meant 
that the possibility of getting food, clothing, houses, and other 
necessities in America was two thousand times as great as in 
Austria. For a time, so great was the lure of American dollars 
in Europe that unscrupulous men secured copies of New York 
City and Chicago telephone directories and sold the addresses 



Only when factories are filled with skilled workers making useful or helpful 
things are they true wealth 

















4io 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


in these for five dollars each in Munich, Vienna, Warsaw, and 
Budapest. If a little begging for "just one dollar a month” for 
a sick wife or child sent to this American address was success¬ 
ful, the writer could live in luxury for a month. 

40 . The Stored-up Wealth of the Nation. In these pages we 
have been dealing with wealth and the means by which it is 
produced. There are two kinds of wealth: (i) natural resources 
and (2) the products made by transforming these resources 
into manufactured goods. We found that some of the means by 
which natural resources are changed into manufactured wealth 
and distributed to the people are in themselves a form of 
wealth. But we saw that money was only a symbol whose 
value varies according to natural resources and the use made 
of them. 

Money is powerful in the United States because we keep it in 
constant use. When it is put to work again to earn more money, 
it becomes what we call capital. That is, if the man who works 
in an office uses his savings to hire a boy to plant his garden, 
the garden represents capital. If he puts his savings in the 
bank or buys stock or bonds in a telephone company, a railroad, 
or any other company, his money also becomes capital. 

In a prosperous country there must always be large quantities 
of this stored-up work, or capital. If there were not, then there 
would be no way of repairing buildings, of erecting new ones, of 
trying out inventions and using these to bring additional com¬ 
forts. The more money a nation has the better, if the money 
is put to work as capital. To waste capital or to use it for 
foolish or harmful things is in reality to waste hours and years 
of hard work. 

One should get in the habit of thinking of buildings, ma¬ 
chines, electric lights,—all made things,—as standing for the 
ideas carefully worked out only after hours and years of toil 
and hard manual labor of hundreds of thousands of people, 
most of whom are dead. These things are our inheritance, and 
are ours only to use, to improve, and to pass on to those who will 
come after us. Even more precious than these man-made things 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


411 

are the things which nature gives us and which we can preserve 
and in a few cases improve, but can never replace. To use these 
in such a way that they can be passed on unimpaired is what the 
people of the past often failed to do and what the people of the 
present must learn to do. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . What kind of natural wealth does your state have? Make a com¬ 
plete list to include rivers, lakes, soils, etc., in each case stating just why 
each is a source of wealth. Give a separate page in your loose-leaf note¬ 
book to each of these, and add facts in regard to (1) waste, (2) wrong 
use, (3) failure to use, (4) remedies, (5) what private organizations are 
doing, (6) what government is doing. 

2 . Cattle and other live stock are a part of the nation’s wealth not 
discussed in the text. These are not natural wealth, but are directly de¬ 
pendent on it. Find out by writing to your state department of agricul¬ 
ture how extensive the raising of cattle, hogs, sheep, fowls, is in the 
state. Relate this to (1) the geographical features of the state, (2) the 
transportation facilities, (3) the local demand of large cities, (4) the de¬ 
mand outside the state. 

3 . Has your state any ponds, lakes, or rivers which yield a supply of 
edible fish? If so, what part does government—either state or na¬ 
tional—have in increasing and protecting this ? 

4 . Make a careful "prosperity” survey of your community to learn 
all the local natural resources on which the community depends for its 
prosperity. On what distant natural resources does it also depend? If 
you live in a large manufacturing city, it would be impossible to get com¬ 
plete information on this point, but learn the most important sources of 
distant wealth that help make your community. (See page 20.) 

5 . To what port are the farm products, the manufactured goods, or 
the mined articles of your locality sent ? Over what railroads, rivers, or 
canals are they transported ? Through what ports do the raw materials 
and other goods from foreign countries used in your locality come ? 

. 6. Take the facts assembled in exercises 4 and 5 and find out what 
government departments, bureaus, or commissions are concerned (na¬ 
tion, state, and community). 

7 . Which of these kinds of fuel are used in your community—coal, 
oil, gas, wood? Where do they come from? If your state produces 


412 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


any of these, find out (i) how much, (2) in what sections, (3) who 
owns it, (4) where most of it is sent. Consult your loose-leaf notebook 
for facts already gathered on this point. 

8. How well is your community connected by railroad, roads, tele¬ 
phone, telegraph, wireless, canal, or river with the rest of the world? 
If the connection is inadequate what is the reason and what is the 
remedy ? 

9 . Bridges are an important part of roads and railroads. At New 
York City there are more than fifty bridges over the Hudson River. 
Bridges which are a part of public roads are built by towns, cities, 
counties, states, and the nation. A bridge at El Paso which connects 
the United States and Mexico was built by Mexico and the United 
States. Bridges which are for the use of railroads alone are usually 
built by the railroad company alone, or else by the state and railroad 
company jointly. Does your state have expensive bridges ? If so, can 
you find out who built them? Some of the bridges of the United States 
are among the marvels of the twentieth century. Does your state have 
any of these? If it does, let several students be a committee to find 
out some of the facts connected with one or more of these. 

10 . Make a special study of the largest port, the most important 
agricultural section, the greatest manufacturing city, in your section 
of the United States. Use the facts given in textbooks of geography and 
atlases as a basis. Add facts from newspapers and from chamber-of- 
commerce and government reports. Know exactly what your state and 
the national government are doing in such cases. If government help is 
inadequate what should be done? If possible suggest new laws or 
revised laws that seem needed. 

11 . Explain how banks help make a nation prosperous. What govern¬ 
ment officials concerned with banks does your state have ? Learn every¬ 
thing possible about some one bank in your community. Appoint a class 
committee to interview one of the bank’s officials. 

12 . Select several desirable articles, conveniences, or privileges which 
it is either difficult or impossible to buy today. Find out the reason. 
Then select some one article of necessity the cost of which in your 
community is excessive. Trace this from its place of origin to your 
community to see if you can explain the high cost. On the basis of the 
facts learned try to find a remedy. 

13 . Re-read Chapter III and discuss the different work ideals men¬ 
tioned there with the problems presented in this chapter. 


MAKING AMERICA PROSPEROUS 


413 

14. Explain capital, private property, money, wealth. When is 
money wealth? 

15. The following headings appeared in a newspaper’s discussion of 
the nation’s prosperity. If you knew nothing about the resources, 
industries, and general conditions of the United States, what would 
these tell you ? 


{New York) 

Merchants Buying from Hand to 
Mouth—Reasons Why Loans Have 
Not Greatly Increased — Large 
Christmas Trade in Sight—Whole¬ 
sale Trade Heavy in Volume—Com¬ 
mon Labor Scarce ’ 

{Cleveland) 

Steel Still Tied Up in Mill Yards 
Due to Car Shortage — Automobile 
Industry Unusually Active—Paint 
Trade Reflects Prosperity — New 
Building Active 

{Minneapolis) 

Car Shortage Past the Peak—Hard 
Coal Receipts in Northwest This 
Year Only 15 Per Cent of Last Year 
— Stocks of Grain Increase — Bank 
Conditions Stronger 

{San Francisco) 

Largest Retail Trade in History Re¬ 
ported by Twelfth Federal Reserve 
District — Lumber Production Ex¬ 
pands—Banks Finance Crops With¬ 
out Aid of Federal Reserve 


{Atlanta) 

Cotton Mills of Sixth Federal Re¬ 
serve District Running 20 Per Cent 
Ahead of Last Year — Farmers Sell¬ 
ing Crops Rapidly — Railroad 
Strike Interferes with Shipments 
of Merchandise 

{Richmond) 

Rise in Tobacco and Cotton Prices 
Strengthen Business Situation in 
Fifth Reserve District—Collections 
Better — Textile Mills Exception¬ 
ally Busy 

{Dallas) 

Cotton Crop Adds $450,000,000 to 
Wealth of the Eleventh Federal 
Reserve District — Farm Imple¬ 
ments Active — Oil Output Rising 
—Fewer New Wells 

{St. Louis) 

Rise in Farm Products Stimulates 
Farmers’ Purchases—Cotton Grow¬ 
ers More Prosperous—Banks Rap¬ 
idly Reducing Their Loans — 
Hardware and Shoe Lines Active 


Note. In working out the exercises of this chapter make use of outline maps 
of your community, your state, and the nation. (See exercises of Chapter I.) 


CHAPTER XVI 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 

1. As Others see Us. Fanny Kemble, the English actress, 
once said to an American business man: "Life in the United 
States is hard and dry. Your country is a great cornfield. See 
that you plant flowers in it.” Mrs. Kemble .did not mean that 
she had not found much beauty here, for she had seen our lakes 
and mountains and had been entertained in some of our beauti¬ 
ful homes. But she was most impressed by the American at 
work, and was fearful that in our eagerness "to produce more 
corn to feed more hogs to buy more land to grow more corn” we 
should forget the flower side of life. At times it has seemed 
as if we really were a nation that loved neither flowers nor 
sunsets. 

2. America’s Special Work has been Dirty Work. But the 

slums, the smoke, the noise, and all the other unattractive fea¬ 
tures of America are only a passing phase of the industrial age 
through which we have been living. America has had a special 
work to do: a work which no other nation could do, for America 
had the tools, the workers, and the vision. This special work 
was mining iron ore and coal, using the coal to transform the 
ore into steel, making the steel into rails, locomotives, and 
ships. It was building machinery to fit our factories that have 
helped make the whole world more comfortable. It was setting 
up telephone wires, laying cables, and raising skyscrapers. If 
these undertakings had been extended over a hundred years, 
the by-products of dirt, noise, and slums might not have been 
so great. But the force of the centuries and her mission among 
the nations have speeded up America to a degree never before 
known in history. 


414 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


415 

Workers for railroad-building, mines, and factories came 
to us from other countries in such large numbers that there 
was not time to build a "white-painted cottage with a yard all 
around” for each family, even if we had wished to. Some weeks 
more than ten thousand newcomers have entered New York 
City. Attractive homes for all of these was an impossibility, 




v rj 




The truest kind of beauty is that which nature gave us when she made 
the continent 


therefore ugly tenements were hastily erected. More and still 
more tenements had to be built each year, and even sunlight 
was crowded out. 

The United States had men capable of preventing the slum 
evil and the spread of dirt and noise, but they were busy at 
other important tasks. There were not hours enough in the 
longest working day for these men to attend to all the problems 
that needed attention. So there have grown up ugly towns, and 
ugly spots in beautiful towns and cities. But this can be partly 
remedied. Here and there a handful of people have already 
started to cure ugliness, and each year their number increases. 







416 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3. Some of the Things that make for Beauty and Attractive¬ 
ness. It will be helpful to summarize briefly the most important 
beautiful things or means of securing beauty that already exist 
in the United States. These are more numerous than may at 
first seem true. The nation that uses nearly five million Christ¬ 
mas trees each year and 
dresses its little children 
better than any other 
country is not a beauty- 
starved nation. And a 
nation whose capital city 
has as much simple 
beauty as Washington 
will surely try to make 
all its towns and cities 
attractive. 

4. The Beauty of Nat¬ 
ural Scenery. The most 
important source of en¬ 
joyment and the one 
within reach of most 
people is the beauty that 
nature gave to the con¬ 
tinent. Not only is our 
country fortunate in its 
mountains, sea, rivers, 
and lakes but in its sunsets, its evening skies, and the length of 
the seasons. There are many people who live in parts of the 
globe where beautiful sunsets are unknown, where seasons are 
such that for long periods there is constant darkness or constant 
twilight or constant full daylight. To be deprived of our sunsets 
and the combination of sunlight, twilight, and darkness which 
we get in each of our three hundred and sixty-five days, except 
in case of storm, would seem to us a great misfortune. It has 
been the wonderful gifts of nature that have kept the heart 
of the American people from growing sordid. 






MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


417 



5 . Music a Part of Life in America. Almost as wonderful 
as the mountains and ocean is the music that is within reach 
of everybody. The people of the United States spend nearly 
$700,000,000 for music each year. Cities like Chicago, New 
York, Philadelphia, 

Boston, have perma¬ 
nent orchestras which 
each year give weekly 
concerts and make tours 
of the smaller cities. 

The best of Europe’s 
musicians are heard in 
every part of the United 
States. One of the most 
important sources of 
beautiful music is the 
churches, in many of 
which week-day organ 
recitals are given dur¬ 
ing the winter and so 
planned that workers 
and busy people can 
take time to hear them. 

Many years ago the 
old-fashioned singing- 
school gave to rural 
communities a season 
of musical pleasure. 

Now both rural towns 
and cities have special community festivals and community 
sings. One of the most memorable evenings of President 
Harding’s first year in the White House was the May day 
when a community sing was held on the steps of the War 
and Navy Building. From his office the President could see 
the Washington Monument in the near distance, the rows of 
Japanese cherry trees in full bloom, the thousands of people, 


© Hagelstein Bros. 

Foreign visitors say that nowhere else in the 
whole world are there so many beautifully 
dressed children as in America 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


418 

and on the soft summer air came the songs that have made 
hearts both sad and gay for many years. The state of Maine 
has a community sing every year. Small choruses, trained for 
many months in towns and villages, at a given date assemble 
in Portland for a week of concerts. In the southern part of 
Missouri, along the Arkansas mountains, on the top of a high 
hill, is an immense clapboard structure which the people call 
their Memorial Temple. Once a year people come by the 
hundreds from every direction and hold a song convention 
here. So famous has their old-fashioned music become that 
travelers plan their routes to take in this Ozark festival. 

Besides the music of the concert halls, the opera houses, 
and the churches, there is the music of the street and of the 
home. Much of the street music is not worthy of the name, but 
often there are wandering street musicians with violin, flute, 
and harp, or singers with violin, who go about giving the chance 
listener a few minutes of genuine pleasure. In many families 
some member plays the piano, the organ, the violin, or if there 
is no ability of this kind, then there is the pianola or the 
phonograph. 

6 . Ways in which Towns and Cities are made Attractive. 
America has much to learn from other countries about beauti¬ 
fying its towns, but every year a little is being done. What 
makes for beauty in village, town, or city? It is wide, well- 
paved streets; plenty of trees; parks and playgrounds; attrac¬ 
tive stores and factories; attractive homes with well-kept 
yards; churches, museums, libraries, schools, etc.; neatness 
and cleanliness everywhere. Some of these things are secured 
by private organizations and some through the town or city 
government. 

Usually it is the following or similar departments that offi¬ 
cially help make the community more attractive: 


Street department 
Park commissioners 
Planning board 
Housing commission 


School committee 
Library trustees 
Museum trustees 
Board of health 



MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 419 

To see the city of Washington in broad daylight and then again 
at night is to know how beautiful a great city can be. Wash¬ 
ington was laid out according to a plan made by experts, but 


In the right kind of community the streets will be beautiful in summer and 
winter. Notice the trees, the street light, the stone fences 

most communities have grown so gradually and unevenly that 
narrow, irregular streets are an inseparable part of them. But 
the most irregular street, if well paved, well swept, well lighted, 
with attractive lamp-posts and shaded with trees, will not be 
wholly unattractive. This result can be secured only if the 
people are willing to be taxed sufficiently. 







420 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


7 . Zoning Boards and City-Planning Departments. Where 
there are city-planning or town-planning boards it is these 
which, with the expert advice of architects, paving experts, 
landscape gardeners, work out plans for opening up new streets, 
widening narrow streets, inserting green spots in public squares, 
and planting trees. The mere act of widening narrow streets 
will sometimes change ugliness to attractiveness-, for more sun¬ 
light finds its way into such a street. One planning board has 
ruled that "a wide street is one having a width between prop¬ 
erty lines of sixty feet or more.” According to this definition 
there are hundreds of towns and cities without a single wide 
street. In some states planning boards have power to zone the 
community; that is, to set apart certain districts for factories 
and others for business or industrial buildings. When, as in the 
case of the Chicago board, the changes to be made are extensive 
the work is planned to extend over a long series of years, so 
that the activities of the city will not be too much disturbed at 
any one time. 

New York and Boston were the first cities in the United 
States to have natural parks; that is, acres of fields, woods, 
brooks, or lakes arranged to look as if made by nature. Now 
such parks are a common feature of large cities. Hartford, 
Connecticut has a municipal rose garden; San Diego, Cali¬ 
fornia, has a miilion-dollar park, in which a mammoth open-air 
pipe organ has been constructed. St. Louis has a park contain¬ 
ing a natural amphitheater capable of seating nine thousand 
people, with pergolas where the crowds can find shelter on 
wet nights. For one of Chicago’s parks the waters of Lake 
Michigan were pushed back by filling in a long stretch and by 
building at one point a miniature bluff as the setting for the 
new art museum. As a war memorial New Haven, Connecticut, 
planned a park along its water basin, which required the 
dredging of swamp lands and the making of a canal. 

8 . The Board of Health Assists. An important part of mak¬ 
ing a community attractive is accomplished under the super¬ 
vision of the board of health. This is the collection of garbage 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


421 


and waste from houses and places of work. Sometimes this is 
done by a private concern, under contract with the city or town, 
and supervised by the board of health. Unsightly garbage or 
waste heaps in empty fields, alleyways, or back yards means that 
something is wrong with the government part of the community. 

9 . How the School and the Library add to the Beauty Side 
of the Community. The school and the library are not always 
thought of as contributors of beauty unless their buildings are 
conspicuous for their architecture or interior decorations. The 
public library, more often than the school, is housed in a beau¬ 
tiful building and has its ceilings and walls filled with works of 
art. Sometimes, however, a one-room rural school and even a big 
city school will be so placed, perhaps high on a hill or on a slope 
with shade and beautiful grounds, that it gives the passer-by a 
sense of pleasure. But whether the school is commonplace or 
beautiful, it contributes immeasurably to the beauty side of life. 
In an earlier chapter we gave some of the reasons for making 
English a required study. The chief reason is to give pupils an 
efficient tool for earning their living and making use of the 
facts learned. But there is still another reason. Hidden away in 
the English language the student will find an accumulation of 
the dreams, ambitions, fancies, of the men and women of every 
country and every age. Sometimes it is not until long after 
schooldays that pupils realize the rare beauty of the poems and 
essays of their textbooks. When a student finds in his English 
literature a poem or an essay that seems to him tedious, he 
needs only to remember that someone has found it beautiful, 
and this will make him study it with the same respect that he 
would give to some treasure of a friend. 

Only a few out of every hundred pupils will be writers of 
books, but everyone will be a teller of stories and a writer of 
letters. In conversation and friendly letters everyone can make 
use of some of the beauty that lies in the language. When the 
Indian boy told his playmate that the voice of the waterfall 
"sounded like the spirits of woods and water crying for their 
lost playmate” and that the people of the cities "hurried along 


422 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


as if the gray wolf were on their trail”; and when the Japanese 
boy said: "Brown is like night. The white-skinned Americans 
are like the day; they are the people of hard work, as the 
daytime is the time of work. The Orientals are the people of 
rest and dreams,”—both the boys were telling in attractive 
words what they saw and felt. Whether it is at the home supper 
table or at a formal dinner where there are distinguished guests, 
the humblest person can give others pleasure if he has acquired 
the ability to tell things interestingly. 

Music and drawing are taught in both the grades and the high 
school. Each year of the music course takes the pupil a little 
way into the world of the Beethovens and Wagners. Just as in 
the study of English literature the pupil needs to learn to have 
respect for the things that others find beautiful, so in music he 
should learn to understand what is beautiful, and why. In some 
cases the school is the music center for the community. In 
Louisville, Kentucky, the schools one year organized a music 
memory contest to familiarize pupils with as much good music 
as possible. The music training of the school does not prepare 
young people to earn their living as musicians, but what each 
community most needs is not more professional musicians, but 
more home musicians—those equipped to add to the enjoyment 
of family and friends and to assist in church, club, and com¬ 
munity affairs. 

The study of drawing prepares the student to appreciate the 
world’s beautiful pictures and sculpture. Some high schools 
offer special courses in fine and industrial arts. St. Louis has 
a museum which one year sent over seventy-five thousand 
exhibits to the schools of the city to illustrate the different 
lessons. Many schools are not only places for learning about 
the beautiful but are distributors or centers of the beautiful. 
The Art Club of the Central High School, Lima, Ohio, a few 
years ago secured collections of water-color and oil paintings 
by well-known American painters and exhibited these in the 
high-school hall. The high school of Richmond, Indiana, has 
an art gallery and a permanent collection of pictures. 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


423 



The local public library also helps make the community 
more beautiful. Its shelves contain the world’s best poems, 
essays, and stories, books dealing with painters and sculptors, 
photographs or prints of the most beautiful works of art. Its 
magazines give descrip¬ 
tions of beautiful places, 
paintings, buildings, and 
other works of art. 

There are also books 
which help young people 
prepare to earn their 
living in some one of 
the occupations which 
create beautiful things. 

In large libraries there 
is a special art depart¬ 
ment, with a room for 
exhibiting photographs, 
rareandbeautifulbooks, 
and special art objects. 

10 . What the County 
Contributes. In 1915, 
for the first time, it was 
possible to drive "from 
the wheat fields of east¬ 
ern Oregon through the 
Cascade Mountains to 
the sea.” This was be¬ 
cause of the enterprise 

of two Oregon counties which persisted in their ambition to 
make a Columbia River highway from Portland to the sea that 
should be one of the nation’s great highways. There are many 
other instances of county enterprise that have resulted in good 
roads through beautiful woods or along the seashore. The 
county is the unit of government which oftenest has to do with 
the planning of roads. It is also the unit which has most to 


<© E. L. Crandall 

Washington is full of the beauty made possi¬ 
ble by architects and landscape gardeners 
















424 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


do with the court side of community life, and the county-court 
buildings are often the only ones of beauty and dignity that 
many of the people ever see. 

11. The State helps by building Roads. Just as towns and 
cities have street and park departments, the states have high¬ 
way and park commissions. The chief task of a state-highway 
commission often has nothing to do with beauty: it is to make 
possible efficient roadways through the principal parts of the 
state, so that farmers and merchants may have ready access 
to markets. But many state highways have been opened up 
through the beautiful sections—to parkways and to the sea¬ 
shore. Sometimes the highway commission has authority to 
prevent the use of billboards along public highways to adver¬ 
tise their wares. In one state the billboards within any com¬ 
munity can be removed whenever a group of citizens petition 
the state-highway commission to have this done. 

12. State Forests and Parks add to the Beautiful. In every 
state there is a park commission, or a bureau with some other 
name, which supervises the state-owned reservations. Wiscon¬ 
sin has been especially enterprising in making its parks a fea¬ 
ture of the state and has several of three thousand and more 
acres. California has one park at Boulder Creek of ten thou¬ 
sand acres, including a forest of redwood trees. Niagara Falls, 
the great gorge of the Genesee River, a gigantic reservation in 
the Adirondack Mountains, and the Palisades are among the 
many parks of New York State. Sometimes the term " park” is 
used to refer to forests and other reservations owned by the 
state which have not been developed for a recreation ground. 
An illustration of the latter is a state forest of Indiana on which 
for seventeen years experiments in the growth of hardwood 
trees have been made. The people are free to roam through this 
and view the experimentation work, but no special provision 
has been made for their pleasure. 

13. Through its forestry bureau, which is sometimes a sub¬ 
division of the department of agriculture or of conservation, the 
state does a kind of service that is not chiefly intended to add 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


425 

to the beauty of the state, but always does. The preservation 
of forests is necessary to maintain our water supply, but a 
mutilated forest is as beautyless as it is thriftless. A wasted 
forest means not only the loss of trees but the disappearance 
of springs and brooks, which have a beauty as great as that of 
the trees. In one Illinois county where originally there were six 
brooks and fifteen springs, today, as a result of deforestation, 
none remains. 

14. The State encourages the Planting of Shade Trees. The 
shade trees in towns and along highways do in a small way 
for the whole state what stretches of woods do in a big way. 
Here again the state helps in several ways: (i) by proclaiming 
an annual arbor day for the planting of trees; ( 2 ) by giving 
information about shade trees; ( 3 ) by furnishing young trees 
or seedlings at cost. Arbor day is never a legal holiday, but most 
states, by governor’s proclamation, call on the people to plant 
trees at that time. 

Many states have nurseries in which they grow seedlings of 
forest trees and of shade and ornamental trees. Usually these 
can be obtained for the mere writing of a letter of request and 
the payment of parcel-post or express charges. Since the World 
War states and communities have been building "roads of re¬ 
membrance,” along which they have set beautiful shade trees. 
New York State planned such a road from New York City to 
Buffalo, planting two thousand elms between Syracuse and 
Utica the first spring. 

15. How the National Government helps. The part the na¬ 
tion officially plays in the making or preservation of beautiful 
things is much like that of community, county, and state. Its 
most conspicuous work is the preservation of some of the moun¬ 
tains, lakes, and forests. There are now nineteen national 
parks (see table on page 426 ). 

These have been called the nation’s gallery of masterpieces, 
the museum of the ages. The Yosemite has the highest un¬ 
broken waterfall in the world, the Grand Canon the mightiest 
chasm, while the Sequoia has trees older than human history. 


426 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


National Parks in Order 
of Creation 

Location 

Area in 
Square Miles 

Hot Springs, 1832 

Middle Arkansas 


Yellowstone, 1872 

Northwestern Wyoming 

3,348 

Sequoia, 1890 

Middle-eastern California 

252 

Yosemite, 1890 

Middle-eastern California 

1,125 

General Grant, 1890 

Middle-eastern California 

4 

Mount Rainier, 1899 

West-central Washington 

324 

Crater Lake, 1902 

Southwestern Oregon 

249 

Wind Cave, 1903 

South Dakota 

i 7 

Platt, 1904 

Southern Oklahoma 

ii 

Sully’s Hill, 1904 

North Dakota 

ii 

Mesa Verde, 1906 

Southwestern Colorado 

77 

Glacier, 1910 

Northwestern Montana 

D 534 

Rocky Mountain, 1915 

North-middle Colorado 

398 

Hawaii, 1916 

Hawaiian Islands 

118 

Lassen Volcanic, 1916 

Northern California 

124 

Mount McKinley, 1917 

South-central Alaska 

2,645 

Grand Canon, 1919 

North-central Arizona 

958 

Lafayette, 1919 

Maine coast 

8 

Zion, 1919 

Utah 

120 


In the forest on the western slope of the Pacific ranges, from 
the Canadian border to the desert of California, are a million 
sequoia trees. Someone has described them as the court of 
King Sequoia, where are in attendance "a statelier gathering 
than ever bowed the knee before human potentate. Erect, 
majestic, clothed in togas and perpetual green, their heads 
bared to the heavens, stand rank upon rank, mile upon mile, 
the noblest personalities of the earth.” 

16. The Nation and its Parks and Monuments. The manage¬ 
ment of the national parks falls to the Department of the In¬ 
terior, which has a special bureau of " national park service.” 
To make it possible for people of moderate means to visit them, 
the government regulates the transportation and hotel rates 
so that there shall be no overcharging, and furnishes expert 
guides at reasonable prices. Camp accommodations are pro¬ 
vided for automobilists who cannot afford the hotels or who 












MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


427 



prefer the more informal way of sight-seeing. Attractive guide¬ 
books describe the trails and automobile routes and give a brief 
account of the geology of each section. A person who cannot 
take a real trip through the parks can makfe a fascinating im¬ 
aginary journey through them by means of this official printed 
matter. Any one of these descriptive booklets can be secured by 
sending twenty cents to 
the National Park Serv¬ 
ice, Washington, D. C. 

During the summer 
months the government 
gives free lectures in the 
parks. One year four 
professors from Cali¬ 
fornia universities made a 
lecture tour of the princi¬ 
pal centers in the Yosem- 
ite National Park, while 
other scientists conducted 
nature-study field excur¬ 
sions and assisted 27,047 
visitors to a better knowl¬ 
edge of the miracles of 
Yosemite’s out of doors. 


The grandeur of our national parks cannot 
be described 


Besides the national 
parks there are thirty- 
six national monuments. 

A national monument is an area set aside by proclamation 
of the president instead of by an act of Congress. When 
the president creates a monument he expects that Congress 
will, after a time, vote to accept it as a national park and 
appropriate money for its upkeep. One of these monuments— 
the Papago Saguaro National Monument in Arizona—was 
created by President Wilson in 1914 to preserve a rich tract of 
desert flora and also to protect the large number of migratory 
birds that wintered there. Perhaps the most wonderful of all 




428 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


monuments is the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Alaska. 
This is a vast valley in the mountains recently torn by a violent 
volcano which turned hundreds of square miles of forest, green 
fields, and settlements into a region desolate but beautiful with 
its countless smoking fumaroles. Some of the monuments are 
assigned to the national-park service of the Department of the 
Interior, some to the Department of Agriculture, and two to the 
War Department. The government has set aside more than 
seventy bird reservations, the first of which to be officially pro¬ 
claimed was Pelican Island, Florida. This was made a reserva¬ 
tion by President Roosevelt in 1903. 

17 . The Department of Agriculture helps make Rural Amer¬ 
ica Beautiful. The Department of Agriculture through the 
bureau of plant industry issues bulletins on the trees best suited 
to different localities, with directions for planting them. Other 
bulletins give practical suggestions for saving diseased trees 
and keeping young trees in a healthy condition. The inside of 
the farm home also receives attention from the Department 
of Agriculture. One of the bureaus has prepared photographs 
of farmhouse interiors—the right and wrong kind of kitchen, 
living-room, parlor, and bedroom—which were exhibited in 
libraries and community centers throughout the United States. 
The department also tries out new varieties of plants that can 
be grown in homes or gardens. One year the department held 
a brilliant amaryllis show in Washington, the purpose of which 
was to introduce to Americans a South American flower that 
could be successfully grown in almost every part of this 
country. 

18 . Other Ways that the National Government Helps. The 

bureau of education, the Library of Congress, and the Na¬ 
tional Museum are other Federal-government agencies that 
contribute directly or indirectly to the beautifying of the 
nation. When one community tried the experiment of a series 
of church organ recitals, which pupils attended as a part of their 
regular school music work, the commissioner of education is¬ 
sued a special letter telling of this experiment. Suggestions for 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


429 

making school buildings attractive have been compiled which 
can be had for the asking. The Library of Congress and the 
National Museum, whose walls and exhibition cases are filled 
with paintings, sketches, and prints of the world’s greatest 
artists, are art centers for the whole nation. 

19. How Business also does its Part. Without the railroad 
and steamboat companies and without the manufacturers of 
automobiles, much of the people’s enjoyment would be taken 
from them. In some years a million people visit Niagara Falls. 
During July and August vacationists from all the forty-eight 
states spend the hottest days on the New England coast. The 
transportation of these people is not a service of the govern¬ 
ment but of private companies. The hotels in the mountains 
and at the seashore are owned and run by individuals or private 
corporations, which, although in business to earn money, pro¬ 
vide a convenience without which vacations for a large number 
of people would be impossible. 

In some cases railroads and steamships add to the attrac¬ 
tiveness of towns and cities by building artistic stations and 
offices. A foreigner traveling in the United States referred to 
the Pennsylvania Station in New York City as "the glory that 
was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” Another said 
of the Grand Central Station that as he came down the 
"long broad flight of steps to the vast floor space below a high 
dome—painted blue like a summer sky, with golden stars 
a-twinkling” it was "like entering a great cathedral.” The 
building of the Cunard Steamship Company in New York 
City has a great hall that is like a magnificent library or mu¬ 
seum, with marble floors and pillars and mural paintings, one 
of which pictures the fleet of Columbus, showing the spirit of 
adventure in the wind-filled sails, the piled-up clouds, the white- 
capped waves, and the sea gulls flying high. 

Other commercial concerns have done much to make their 
buildings beautiful. The headquarters of the United Fruit Com¬ 
pany in New Orleans was described by an art critic as connect¬ 
ing "the idea of prosaic commerce with the romance of the 


430 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Spanish Main.” The chief feature of the interior is a large 
mural painting in glowing colors giving a glimpse of a beautiful 
spot in the tropics. A bank in a small town is adorned with 
wrought-iron gates copied from a Spanish cathedral built in 
1221, floors of marble from Tennessee and Belgium, bronze 
medallions by expert workers in bronze, a ceiling painting of 
soft colors that lights up the whole interior. 

Many department stores are the result of the combined 
skill of architects, interior decorators, and artists, so that 
from every angle and in every corner they please the eye. One 
of Chicago’s retail houses has been known to spend between 
$60,000 and $75,000 for decorative schemes for a single opening 
and between $12,000 and $15,000 for each window. Several 
stores have organs which flood the acres of space with music at 
intervals during the day and on special occasions. One store 
has an art gallery in which it holds frequent exhibitions of the 
best work of American and European artists and sculptors. 
It also has a reading-room of the world’s best literature. 

Many business concerns add a touch of summer to midwinter 
and make homes more attractive both winter and summer 
by growing trees, shrubs, bulbs, and flowers for sale. When 
during one year there was such a shortage of coal that many 
greenhouses were forced to let their plants die, city people 
suddenly realized how much of the winter beauty of the home 
depended on the greenhouse. Opera, concert, and theater com¬ 
panies are some of the other money-making concerns which 
contribute lavishly to the recreation side of community life. 

Without the daily newspaper we should be handicapped in 
our efforts to get and to give beauty. Without this the stores 
and concert companies could not easily tell the people of their 
special attractive events, and the village-improvement societies 
and every kind of "improvement” undertaking would be de¬ 
prived of its best means of quickly getting the interest and 
help of the people. The newspaper is a spreader of news about 
every kind of beauty, whether of home, church, museum, li¬ 
brary, the out of doors. 



One bit of the waiting-room of the Pennsylvania Station, which an English¬ 
man described as having "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that 
was Rome ” 




















COMMUNITY CIVICS 



432 

20 . How Various Societies and Associations Help, There are 
hundreds of associations and societies, like the American For¬ 
estry Association, the American Rose Society, and state horti- 
cultural societies, that help make living more attractive. The 
American Forestry Association called attention to the value of 
the nation’s trees by forming a Hall of Fame for historic trees, 
like the Washington Elm in Cambridge; the Washington Oak 


The Union Station at Washington is like a great art museum 

on the Hampton plantation at Santee River, South Carolina; 
the Washington Willow (grown from twigs taken from a weep¬ 
ing willow at the Mount Vernon tomb) at Constantine, Michi¬ 
gan. The Boy Scouts in every part of the United States have 
planted trees in memory of Roosevelt. The Children’s Museum 
of Brooklyn one year organized a tree club which raised money 
to plant trees along many avenues. Horticultural societies have 
lectures and exhibitions in which rare orchids, ferns, roses, and 
other plants are shown. At one annual orchid show it was 
estimated that the varieties assembled represented at least 
$100,000. 

Often it is an organization like the local chamber of com¬ 
merce that takes the lead in beautifying streets and setting out 













MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


433 



trees. In New York City there is an association of Fifth Avenue 
business men which finds ways of adding to the attractiveness 
of the avenue. One year the city-improvement committee of 
the chamber of commerce of Waterbury, Connecticut, gave 
plants and shrubs to families with yards free from tin cans and 
rubbish. Wherever an 
extensive plan of beau¬ 
tifying has been under¬ 
taken, the chamber of 
commerce has usually 
had a part in the work. 

Another chain of organ¬ 
izations almost as valu¬ 
able are the arts and 
crafts societies, which en¬ 
courage artists byopening 
attractive salesrooms to 
furnish amarket for hand¬ 
made silverware, jewelry, 
pottery, wood-carving, 
china, rugs, and other 
craft articles. The Amer¬ 
ican Federation of Arts, 
whose headquarters are 
in Washington, D.C., is 
an especially helpful or¬ 
ganization. Each year 
it sends out traveling exhibitions of American and foreign paint¬ 
ings, etchings, rare prints, and other art collections, with free 
typewritten lectures to accompany the exhibitions. Any school, 
church, or local society that will pay the cost of insurance and 
transportation can secure the free loan of any of these col¬ 
lections for a week or more. 

21 . What Individuals have done. When we come to enumer¬ 
ate the ways in which individual Americans have helped make 
their country more beautiful, the honor list is so long that 


© Peter A. Juley 

The main room in the Cunard Building in 
New York City has the beauty of a great 
cathedral 




434 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


there is no hope of doing it justice. It was a Kansas farmer 
boy, Will G. Steels, who in 1869 read of a lake in Oregon "with 
precipice sides five thousand feet deep” whose location was 
unknown. For fourteen years he made diligent search for this 
mysterious lake. Finally in 1885 he stood on the rim of the 
crater of the extinct volcano which formed the sides of this 
body of water. So wonderfully beautiful did the region seem to 
him that he prepared a petition to President Cleveland, asking 
that this area be made a national park. It took seventeen years 
of persistent effort to get this bill through Congress. During 
these years, although he was a private citizen with no income 
except what he earned by school-teaching, Steels traveled sum¬ 
mers through Oregon lecturing in behalf of the park, and mak¬ 
ing many trips to Washington to talk personally to congressmen. 
Crater Lake became a national park in 1902, and in 1920 Steels 
was made its commissioner. 

One of the groves of the ancient trees which now make 
up the Muir National Monument belonged to a lumber com¬ 
pany which had begun to fell the trees for commercial purposes. 
To save the trees a California man and his wife bought and pre¬ 
sented the grove to the nation in memory of John Muir. A 
group of public-spirited citizens of the state of Maine through a 
long series of years patiently bought up small areas of seashore 
property, and thus made Lafayette National Park possible. 
One of Indiana’s state parks was the gift of a group of citizens. 

Another kind of service that an individual has performed 
was that of a Colorado artist. Once, in a beautiful spot, he 
came upon a cliff disfigured with letters nearly twenty feet 
high advertising a brand of collars. Only an act of the legisla¬ 
ture could prevent this kind of advertising, so he ran for the 
legislature, won the election, then prepared a bill "making it an 
offense punishable by a heavy fine or a jail sentence to deface 
the scenery of the state.” To the doubting legislators the artist 
said that Colorado had only two principal things to sell— 
silver to the mints and scenery to the tourists. The silver would 
sometime be exhausted, but with the right kind of care the 



One of the old Mexican missions in California is an example of almost every 
kind of beauty—architecture, color, trees, and flowers. Note the pool, the 
flower-bed, the vines, the stately tree, the graceful windows, the perfect pro¬ 
portions of the low tower. Does your community have a building that is so 
beautiful? (From a painting by Benjamin C. Brown) 















COMMUNITY CIVICS 


436 

scenery could be made a permanent source of wealth. His 
common-sense argument succeeded, and his bill was passed. 

Of the many other ways in which individuals have contrib¬ 
uted toward beautifying the nation and the community the 
following are only illustrative: 

1. The money which for many years provided the school children of 
Boston with admission to the art museum was given by Theodore Vail. 

2. The public playground of the shoe city of Brockton, filled with 
beautiful trees, shrubs, and ornamental gateways, was the gift of a 
business man of the city. 

3. The Indian statue ("The Scout”), by Dallin, which stands high 
on a cliff overlooking Kansas City, was the gift of a private citizen. 

4. One of the rarest collections of tropical ferns in the United States 
is owned by a wealthy Philadelphia family, but it is shared with the 
public at certain times. 

5. A New York business man not only organized a boys’ orchestra, 
open to any New York City boy with musical ability, but provided the 
musical instruments, the instructors, and paid all other expenses. 

6. The bird park just outside of Detroit, which by means of electric 
devices provides sufficient food, drink, and warmth to attract and protect 
thousands of migratory birds every winter, was the gift of a manufacturer. 

7. Three of the most beautiful spots in Oregon have become a 
part of the Columbia River Highway because of the generosity of 
Oregon citizens. Each includes one of those graceful cascades, or water¬ 
falls, that give to the Cascade Mountains, through which the highway 
runs, their name. 

8. A private citizen of New York created a trust of about $20,000,000 
"to aid all worthy students of music in securing a complete and ade¬ 
quate musical education” and to arrange for musical entertainments to 
be open to all the people. 

9. The Symphony Orchestra of Boston was due to the money and in¬ 
fluence of one private citizen. 

22. Instances of the Way in which Government, Private Or¬ 
ganizations, and Individuals cooperate in securing Results. 
In the United States most of the important undertakings have 
been due not to any one governmental agency or to any one 
society, business firm, or individual, but to a combination of 
these. For instance, in Kentucky, when six miles of roadway 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


437 

were imperatively needed in a mountain section of great 
beauty, the county gave $5000, private citizens $10,000, and a 
private school raised the rest of the funds, half of which the 
state voted to return to the school in yearly installments. An¬ 
other illustration of cooperation is furnished by the tercente¬ 
nary celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. 
The town of Plymouth, the state of Massachusetts, and the 
government at Washington each appropriated money for the 
celebration and for permanent memorials. 

23 . Occupations that add to the Beautiful. Many occupa¬ 
tions help make the community more attractive. The following 
is a list of some of these: 

Artists 
Sculptors 
Musicians 

Writers of poems, essays, fiction 
Architects 
Photographers 
Landscape gardeners 

The clerks who sell china, draperies, and artistic fabrics in 
silk or cotton and the factory employees who help weave beau¬ 
tiful rugs or cloths of beautiful colors and texture or help make 
artistic furniture, wall paper, or some other attractive article 
also have occupations that are indispensable in making Amer¬ 
ica beautiful. On one busy street is a Greek fruit dealer, whose 
stand is always so arranged that it is one of the beauty spots of 
the business section; on another corner an old man sells attrac¬ 
tive little envelopes of lavender; and in the opening of an alley- 
way a woman displays for sale flowers and pine branches that 
she brings each morning from the country. One does not need 
to have genius or talent in order to add a touch of beauty to 
everyday living. 

24 . Ways in which everyone can help make America Beauti¬ 
ful. Comparatively few persons will earn their living in the 
occupations listed above, and only a few will be government 


Interior decorators 
Dye experts 

Designers of furniture and fabrics 
Cabinetmakers 
Nurserymen and florists 
Teachers of music and painting 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


438 

officials whose duties are concerned with parks, playgrounds, 
roads, and public buildings. But everyone can help in some one 
of the following ways: 

1. Never failing to vote when matters relating to roads, streets, and 
parks are to be decided. 

2. Writing to the proper officials when laws concerning rubbish, bill¬ 
boards, smoke and noise nuisances, are broken. 

3. Joining or helping form village-improvement societies, play¬ 
ground associations, horticultural societies. If a person cannot be active 
in such an association, he can at least pay his dues regularly and help 
with his money. 

4. Finding out each year what bills are being introduced into the 
state legislature that affect roads, parks, seashore, birds, forests, 
streams and lakes, art museums, public buildings, then, either as a 
member of some club or organization or as a private individual, writing 
to one’s representatives expressing either approval or disapproval of 
the bills. 

' 5. Patronizing those stores whose windows and counters are the 

neatest and most attractive. 

6. Complaining to railroad, street-car, and other semipublic com¬ 
panies when their stations and waiting-rooms are untidy. 

7. Planning to see for oneself some of the most beautiful places, 
buildings, paintings, and sculpture in the United States. 

8. Cultivating any natural ability that one has for music, drawing, 
interior decoration, landscape gardening. 

9. Making the inside and outside of one’s home as attractive as 
possible, even if one lives in a rented house. 

10. Being ready to start doing the thing in the community that needs 
to be done to efface ugliness or create beauty. 

11. Accepting high taxes cheerfully if these are caused by money spent 
wisely for some local or state improvement that makes for beauty. 

25. Making America Beautiful means making its People 
Attractive. Neither a nation nor a community can be really 
beautiful unless it has not only attractive streets and houses 
but attractive people. This statement at first seems almost 
ludicrous, for we think of people as being born either beautiful 
or homely. But people are made attractive by good health, 
education, usefulness, and independence. A person who is ill, 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


439 

overworked, filled with distrust, useless, is never beautiful. 
Perhaps Washington is our most beautiful city, but if most of 
the faces that one met on the streets showed evidence of disease, 
poverty, or the spirit of lawlessness, then all its magnificent 
buildings, broad avenues, and beautiful parks could not make 
the city attractive. To 
make a community or a 
nation beautiful there 
must be helps to (i) 
gaining good health, 

(2) eliminating overwork, 

(3) overcoming lawless¬ 
ness, (4) taking care of 
the unfortunate. 

26 . Helps to securing 
Good Health. Probably 
more government officials 
and private individuals 
are at work trying to 
make Americans strong 
and rugged than are en¬ 
gaged in any other one 
task. Every town has its 
doctors and health offi¬ 
cials, and its teachers of 
hygiene in the public 
schools. Every state has 
many laws dealing with impure foods, drainage, mosqui¬ 
toes, drinking-water, contagious diseases, and officials to carry 
out the laws. The district nurse, the school nurse, and the 
school doctor, school lunches for underfed children, special 
outdoor classes for tubercular children, are a few of the more 
recent helps that the government is affording. Because defor¬ 
mity is never beautiful, strenuous effort is also being made to 
prevent accidents that will injure persons. Most states now 
have laws which require employers to pay their employees for 



© Keystone View Co. 


One of the many devices for making Amer¬ 
ican children healthy—a sanitary, iceless 
refrigerator car 






440 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


injuries received while at work. One result has been that 
owners of factories, stores, and other employers have installed 
many kinds of accident-prevention devices. 

Unfortunately many accidents are caused by carelessness— 
overspeeding in automobiles, rushing heedlessly across busy 
streets, getting on and off cars the wrong way. It is much easier 
to make employers provide protection against accidents than 
it is to make the ordinary person save himself from his own 
carelessness. Laws can force factory and mine owners to install 
protective devices, but no law can prevent carelessness. Over¬ 
speeding on highways is prohibited by law, and in some states 
careless drivers are deprived of their licenses, but the number 
of automobile and other accidents increases every month. Not 
all these maim or injure persons, but one sees every day dis¬ 
figured bodies that are the victims of somebody’s carelessness. 

27 . Helps to preventing Ill-Health. The right kind of hard 
work makes health and beauty, but overwork dulls the eyes, 
bends the shoulders, and takes the eagerness out of every move¬ 
ment. This is especially true of children and women, whose 
bodies are often less rugged than those of men. Therefore most 
states have passed laws prohibiting child labor, limiting the 
hours of work for women, and making certain kinds of night 
work and heavy work illegal for women. The compulsory 
school-attendance laws are a help in keeping growing children 
from being injured by overwork in factories and on farms. 

But even the strong and rugged can after a time be worn out 
by overwork. Therefore in many states nine hours is being 
made the legal working day in certain industries. Occasionally 
a man overworks merely to pile up the dollars. For such unwise 
persons the government can do little. But if sickness or some 
other disaster in the home has made overwork necessary, then 
both private organizations and government departments come 
to his assistance through free medical attendance at hospitals, 
and gifts and loans of money with which to buy necessary 
supplies. Most of this kind of assistance is given by private 
charity, but in many communities the government provides tax- 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


441 

supported hospitals, dispensaries, nurses, and departments of 
welfare which offer similar help. 

In addition to those who need the help of government to 
cope with the evils of overwork are the large number of insane 
and feeble-minded persons, who need special care for their own 
sake and also for the sake of the rest of the community. The 
states have hospitals for the insane and special schools and 
institutions for the feeble-minded. So rapidly has the number 
of these unfortunate persons increased in recent years that 
private organizations of doctors and educators have been 
formed to study ways of preventing these evils. Persons who 
are born feeble-minded or with a tendency to insanity often are 
the children of parents or grandparents who were drinkers or 
had other habits injurious to health. One way, therefore, of pre¬ 
venting insanity and feeble-mindedness is to teach the young 
people of today right habits of living. 

The principal government agencies by which the people are 
helped in striving for health are: 

1. The local boards of health—sometimes these are town, village, 
and city boards and sometimes county boards. The powers of these 
vary according to the state laws creating them. In most cases they have 
to do with the collection of garbage, inspection of water, milk, and 
places where food is prepared and sold, the quarantining of contagious 
diseases, the enforcement of laws dealing with alleyways, etc. 

2. The department of public works, which has charge of supplying the 
community with drinking-water, and of operating the sewerage system 
of the community by which the waste water from homes and places of 
work is carried away. 

3. The local city and town planning boards and zoning committees, 
already referred to, have much to do with the health of the community 
by eliminating dirt, noise, and congestion from the home sections. 

4. When the community has one or more hospitals officially sup¬ 
ported and controlled, it is usually a separate board which has the 
management of this. 

5. Many hospitals are county institutions, especially those for the 
tubercular and other diseases requiring a long period of treatment. 

6. State boards of health and departments of welfare and safety, 
housing boards—all deal very directly with the health and happiness 



442 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

of the people. The state maintains a laboratory to assist in studying 
and diagnosing diseases. A state board examines doctors, nurses, and 
pharmacists, and permits only those passing the examination to do busi¬ 
ness in the state. Other officials inspect live stock to see that diseases 
which might affect milk and meat do not spread. The state inspects 


Disease is never attractive, but the service of caring for the sick and 
unfortunate is always beautiful 

cold-storage houses, where foods are kept, to see that the laws in regard 
to time and manner of storage are observed. 

7. Most states which have streams containing edible fish have a 
commission whose task it is to see that these are not polluted in a 
way to make the fish unsuited for food. 

8. In states which have laws about hours of factory labor, child 
labor, etc., there are special officials, often connected with the depart¬ 
ment of labor, who inspect places of work to see that the laws are not 
infringed. 

9. In most states the free hospitals for the insane, the feeble-minded, 
the tubercular, etc. are state owned and controlled. 










MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


443 


io. There is not yet a national department of health, but one of 
the bureaus of the Treasury Department is the public-health service, 
which has the arduous task of seeing that diseases do not enter the 
United States through the ships which every day dock at our wharves. 
All quarantine stations are under this service. When one remembers 
that in some years three million immigrants have had to be examined 
carefully to see that they were free from disease, it is easy to under¬ 
stand how valuable a part of our government this bureau is. The 
bureau also maintains research workers to study the diseases prevalent 
in the country and to help the states find means to cope with them. 
About ten years ago the public-health service made a trachoma survey 
in the Southern mountain region and found conditions so bad in three 
counties that the government opened a trachoma hospital in each. 

n. Through its hospitals for ex-soldiers and sailors and its voca¬ 
tional schools for the injured, the national government is doing a useful 
service that indirectly, at least, helps secure health. 

12. Through its national parks the national government offers a 
means of securing wholesome vacations. 

28. How Lawlessness is dealt with. The spirit of lawlessness 
is another handicap to attractiveness, for those who defy the 
laws have faces that are hard or sullen and repel rather than 
attract. Not all those who have the spirit of lawlessness in 
their minds and hearts are actually lawbreakers, but they are 
out of place on beautiful streets or in beautiful homes. They 
are not happy there, and they lessen the happiness of others. 
Most of those who are lawless of spirit are untrained —they 
do not know how to get pleasure out of work or leisure. The 
right kind of homes, evening schools, and libraries are what 
these people need. The more of these helps there are, the less 
of the wrong spirit there will be. 

But in addition to these people there are, sad to say, an army 
of actual lawbreakers. They steal, burn houses, and commit 
murder. The United States is the most lawless of all the na¬ 
tions. Therefore the task that lies ahead of those who are to 
make America truly beautiful is an arduous one. At present the 
means that the people are taking to eliminate this kind of 
ugliness are of four kinds: 


444 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


1. Eliminating the slum homes which, because of their unattractive¬ 
ness, drive the young people into the streets. 

2. Arresting lawbreakers and sending them to reform schools, jails, 
and prisons, thus taking out of the community temporarily those whose 
deeds are ugly. 

3. Training lawbreakers while in jail to do some useful work, thus 
preventing them from continuing to be lawless after completing their 
term. 

4. Through a system of juvenile courts, in which much is left to the 
wisdom of the judge, giving boys and girls a chance to make good with¬ 
out being sent to reform schools and prisons. 

The cost of arresting lawbreakers and holding them in prison 
is very great, but no one has yet worked out a more suitable 
plan for dealing with lawbreakers. One thing has been proved, 
however, that those who have well-trained minds and bodies, 
steady employment, and good homes are less likely to be 
drawn into lawlessness. Therefore, as we have already pointed 
out, the people every year are finding new ways of protecting 
health, additional opportunities for study, more helps in pre¬ 
paring for a useful occupation and making a good home. Many 
criminals have been found to be feeble-minded or insane and 
therefore not responsible for their acts. The insane and in many 
states the feeble-minded are placed in special hospitals and 
homes, where they can do no harm. 

The principal government agencies for dealing with lawless¬ 
ness are 

1. Local courts and policemen. 

2. School-attendance officers. 

3. Public playgrounds and parks, which give boys a place to play 
without getting into mischief. 

4. Special juvenile courts. 

5. Special schools for troublesome boys and girls. 

6. County reform schools, courts, and jails, which are really separate 
communities for troublesome persons. 

7. State courts, state police, and state prisons. 

8. Federal courts and prisons, where offenders against United States 
laws are confined. 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 445 

29. Helps to securing Independence. There is still another 
thing that keeps people from having eager, happy faces. This 
is dependence on others. Because of extravagance, lack of busi¬ 
ness ability, lack of education, or bad habits, many people are 
forced to depend on others for their support. The misery that 
one sees in the faces of these is not a thing that one likes to 
remember. The beggar, the tramp, the loiterers in the parks, 
in garages, and on street corners, make even the most attrac¬ 
tive community seem less pleasant. Modern America is full of 
opportunities for gaining and holding independence. Some of 
these are 

1. An elaborate system of public and private schools where one can 
fit himself to earn a living. 

2. After-school helps in the form of libraries, evening schools, and lec¬ 
tures (see Chapter XIII). 

3. Savings banks, in which sums as small as two dollars may be 
deposited to earn interest for the saver. 

4. Life-insurance companies, in which one can place his savings to 
earn money to be paid him at a later date. 

5. Cooperative banks and workingmen’s loan associations, through 
which one can borrow money to add to his savings for building a home. 

6. Opportunities for investing money in railroad and other respon¬ 
sible companies. 

Often the only difference between a person who is independent 
in his old age and another who lives on charity is not that the 
first person earned more than the second, but that the first 
saved some of his earnings and the second did not. 

Sometimes women are abandoned by their husbands, and 
children by their parents. To prevent such persons from becom¬ 
ing dependent on private charity the government has passed 
laws making such neglect a crime. Men and parents who do 
not support their families may be arrested, brought into court, 
and unless they give satisfactory promises to make good are 
sent to jail. A few states also have laws requiring sons and 
daughters to support their parents if they are without inde¬ 
pendent means of support. Of course no person who has to 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


446 

be supported by unwilling relatives can be happy, but this mis¬ 
fortune is probably not so great as that of having to depend 
on strangers. 

Frequently there are periods of hard times when banks 
fail, factories close, and both savings and work disappear. At 
the close of the World War there was great distress because of 
widespread unemployment. The kind of dependence that re¬ 
sults from long-continued unemployment is one of the unsolved 
problems of all the nations today. As we have seen, it is the 
people, not the government, who find and provide work for 
themselves and others. And it must be the people and not the 
government who solve the problem of unemployment. In the 
past America has had more happy, healthy faces than other 
countries because it has had more work. If the periods of unem¬ 
ployment increase, then we shall have the kind of distress that 
can spoil the natural beauty of the most wonderful setting of 
mountains and lakes. Prosperity is always attractive; poverty 
is always ugly. 

The principal government agencies which help the dependent 
are 

1. Local boards, sometimes called overseers of the poor. 

2. Local departments of welfare. 

3. Free city employment bureaus. 

4. A pension system for retired policemen, teachers, and other gov¬ 
ernment employees (only a few communities have such a system). 

5. County boards, sometimes called overseers of the poor, and 
county homes for the poor. Even where there is a local board of 
overseers of the poor, it is often a county institution which cares for 
the poor. 

6. State homes for orphans, state officials who place children in pri¬ 
vate homes and give aid to mothers to enable them to keep the children 
in the home. 

7. A state department of labor which investigates causes of unem¬ 
ployment and suggests remedies. 

8. State free employment agencies (usually under control of the 
department of labor). 

9. A national pension system and insurance plan for helping ex¬ 
soldiers and ex-sailors. 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


447 


io. Hospitals to care for those enlisted in the army or navy. These 
are located at forts and at convenient places along the Atlantic and 
Pacific. These are under the supervision of the War and Navy Depart¬ 
ments. Besides such hospitals there are many hospitals for sailors on 
our merchant vessels. These men belong to no community and there¬ 
fore when ill would have no place to go if the government had not 
established a number of so-called marine hospitals for such cases. 
These are under the supervision of the public-health service of the 
Treasury Department. 

30. Unofficial Helps to gaining Health and Independence. 

To enumerate all the ways in which the people unofficially help 
make the people of the nation attractive would be impossible. 
A few are suggested: 

1. Most of the schools and colleges for the training of doctors, 
dentists, and pharmacists are maintained by private funds. 

2. In many communities there are district nurses’ associations, man¬ 
aged and run by private individuals. 

3. There are many associations, like the Baby Hygiene Association 
and the Red Cross, which publish leaflets and books giving helps about 
avoiding illness in the home. In almost every community there is at 
least one organization of this kind. In one city there is a women’s 
municipal league, which has separate departments trying to eliminate 
the fly menace, bad alleys, rats and mice, mosquitoes, dark tenements. 
Often there is a wasteful overlapping of these helpful agencies, several 
organizations trying to accomplish the same result when more could be 
done if they were united into one. 

4. Insurance companies not only insure persons, but many of them 
have expensive educational departments which publish helpful books 
to be distributed free, and which send out trained lecturers. 

5. Welfare departments of stores and factories provide rest rooms, 
free medical attendance, and other helps to good health. 

6. In most of the large cities there are settlement houses which try 
to eliminate every form of ugliness, from dirt to lawlessness. By means 
of private funds they start classes to teach mothers how to care for 
their children and to teach children how to play and how to work. Fre¬ 
quently they also have evening classes to teach grammar-school and 
high-school subjects, and special trade classes for handicapped persons. 

7. Private individuals have started every kind of home for unfor¬ 
tunate persons, from homes for children to homes for the aged. 


448 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


31. The Church helps counteract Ugliness. Of all the un¬ 
official organizations which help to eliminate the kinds of ugli¬ 
ness that spoil even the most attractive community, the church 
is the most important. It is important not only because it aids 
the poor and the sick but because it teaches the principles of 
right living. A part of the teaching of every church, whatever 
the denomination, is that there is a power higher than the indi¬ 
vidual to whose laws one must conform if he wishes happiness 
and contentment. Those communities in which the churches 
flourish are seldom those in which lawlessness also flourishes. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read the chapter quickly as a whole, then make a brief outline 
of it under three headings to show what the government does to make 
America beautiful, what private organizations do, and what individuals 
do. Devote a page to each heading. Have a separate sheet also under 
these three headings for your community. 

2 . Turn to the list of the community government officials and 
bureaus prepared for Chapter VI and find out which of these are directly 
or indirectly concerned with making the community attractive. 

3 . Make a "beauty” survey of your community,- or neighborhood 
if you live in a large city. This may be merely an extension of the 
study already made of the community for Chapters V and VI. But let 
this be a thoroughgoing survey, to learn exactly how much remains to 
be done. When the complete list of what needs to be done is made out, 
divide this into two parts: (i) the things that pupils can accomplish and 
(2) those which the older people must attend to. Of the things which 
the older people must attend to, indicate what would be the best means 
of getting results—whether through private organizations or govern¬ 
ment bureaus. 

4 . After this survey has been made, have a committee appointed by 
the class to make out a report and send to the local newspaper. The 
editor will probably be glad either to refer to this or to print parts of it. 

5 . If the principal thinks wise the class may prepare a simple exhibit 
to be placed in the public library or in some central store to show what 
needs to be done. Some pupils can take photographs, others can make 
drawings to show where improvements are needed. This exhibit should 
give special emphasis to changes needed in schools, library, playgrounds. 


MAKING AMERICA BEAUTIFUL 


449 


6. In 3 you have probably included items about the smoke, noise, 
and billboard nuisances. Let several members of the class make a spe¬ 
cial report on these to indicate (i) the cause; (2) how much discom¬ 
fort is caused; (3) whether there are any laws to prevent these, and, 
if so, why they are not enforced; (4) whether any attempt is being 
made t<? pass adequate laws to remedy these; (5) what private organi¬ 
zations, like board of trade, civic league, are trying to improve con¬ 
ditions. 

7 . Does your state have a law which permits or requires zoning in 
communities? If so, is it enforced? If not, what is the reason? 
Massachusetts has an excellent law, but it provides for no penalties for 
failure to observe the law. Is this the case with the law of your state ? 

8. If any of the essential occupations of your community or state 
have unattractive surroundings, find out whether this is unavoidable. 
If it is, show, if possible, that the work helps provide beautiful things 
for other people—perhaps in distant parts of the world. For instance, 
in developing the anthracite coal regions of northeastern Pennsylvania 
the beauty of wooded hills and green meadows has been spoiled, but 
"today over 100,000 families get their living out of this section . . . 
where 100 families of Indians could not live, and homes in every part of 
the United States have warmth and light because of the coal.” 

9. If you have spent a vacation in a beautiful spot, tell about it. 
If you have not, decide on some place that you would like to see and 
get facts about railroad rates, boarding-house or hotel rates, the best 
time of year to see it. Go about the getting of information as if you 
could surely visit this place next summer. 

10 . Does the occupation which you are planning to take up when you 
leave school directly or indirectly create beautiful things ? If through 
the work by which you earn your living you cannot contribute to the 
beautiful, there will be ways in which you can encourage those who do. 
For instance, unless artists find buyers for their pictures, they cannot 
paint; unless florists have buyers they cannot raise flowers. If you 
had five hundred dollars to spend on pleasure, how could you spend it to 
encourage those who produce beautiful things ? 

11. Is there a national park, monument, or bird reservation in or 
near your state? If so, find out (1) when it was made such, (2) who 
did the "leading,” (3) what is the result to the state in fertility, 
streams, beauty. 

12 . Are there any public tourists’ camps in your state or county ? If 
so, who supports them? 


450 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


13 . Discuss in class how the inside of the home can be made beautiful 
(use the material gathered for use in Chapter V). 

14 . Explain how art museums help make America beautiful. Refer to 
your loose-leaf-notebook material on this subject and describe several 
beautiful things which the nearest art museum has. 

15 . When a reporter interviewed a famous Frenchwoman, to his 
question "What is the secret of a woman’s beauty?” she replied: 
"There are three things: first, intelligence; second, intelligence; and 
third, intelligence.” Discuss in class what intelligence is and how it can 
make a person attractive. 

16 . Make a list of all the helps that your community affords for gain¬ 
ing and keeping health. Include playgrounds, parks, ponds which offer 
opportunities for rowing and skating, athletic clubs, private clubs, 
gymnasiums, the regular and efficient collection of garbage, etc. In each 
case indicate whether it is government or private individuals who have 
made the help possible; then make two groups of the list, one to show 
how much government does and the other how much the people un¬ 
officially do. 

17 . What is the difference between hard work and overwork? What 
are the hours of work in most of the occupations in your community ? 
Does any occupation have the ten-hour day ? Why is it easier to work 
many hours out of doors than in offices and factories ? 

18 . Study several weeks’ issues of some local paper and clip all items 
relating to lawbreakers. Arrange these in groups according to the kind 
of offense or crime committed. What is being done by the people to 
prevent these kinds of lawlessness in your community? Are many of 
the offenders young? What preventives of crime, like playgrounds, base¬ 
ball grounds, parks, free concerts, community centers, does your com¬ 
munity have? (Refer to loose-leaf-notebook material compiled for 
Chapter VII.) 

19 . There are numberless opportunities for leadership in making the 
community attractive. Every act of leadership has some tangible result. 
What special opportunities can you see in your community? If your 
class as a whole could lead in some one of the many ways suggested by 
this chapter, what would it plan to do ? 


CHAPTER XVII 

THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA —I 

1 . All the World has come to America. During the centuries 
that America was a world of Indian tribes, wild animals, great 
forests, mighty rivers, vast mountains and plains, it was a 
shut-in world. The Indian tribes wandered about at will, but 
they never passed the barrier of the ocean, and those beyond the 
ocean did not even know of this continent of wonders. The 
America of those years was not many worlds in one—just one 
big, struggling Indian world. But from the day that the first 
white man touched foot to American soil, America has been in¬ 
vaded peacefully but continually by all the nations of the earth. 

In the official headquarters of Turkey, many years ago, 
there were several deaf-mute attendants who described the 
diplomats of the various nations by means of gestures. They 
designated the American minister by holding up their palms 
and blowing on them to show that he had come from a far 
country. Several years later they described him by swinging 
their arms around in a circle to show that he came from a great 
world power. This gesture was more fitting than they probably 
knew, for not only had the United States become a world power 
in the sense of being one of the most powerful nations, but it 
had gathered to it some of all the nations of the world. 

By 1919 more than thirty-three million people had made the 
long journey from alien shores to this country. Such facts as 
the necessity of printing a recent official census of New York 
City in twenty-two languages, and the presence of men of forty- 
eight different nationalities in a single factory in Detroit, help 
us realize that the United States consists of parts of all the 
world. In this respect our nation differs from every great 
European nation, as the figures of a recent year show. 

45 1 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


452 


Percentage of Foreign-Born in the Principal Cities of the World 


London 

Paris 

Berlin 

Vienna 


Europe 

3 per cent 
6 per cent 
. . 2.9 per cent 

. . 1 per cent 


United States 

New York ... 41 per cent 

Chicago ... 36 per cent 

Boston ... 36 per cent 

Cleveland ... 34 per cent 

Detroit . . . 33 per cent 


2 . Something about the Kind of People who come to America. 

Who are these 41 per cent of foreign-born of New York City, 
the 33 per cent of Detroit? What kind of people are filling up 
the nation so rapidly? To answer this question in detail would 
fill many volumes, for these millions are of every race, religion, 
and ambition. Differences in race, religion, occupation, matter 
little, but work ideals and home ideals matter much. We have 
rigid laws excluding all but a few of the yellow races, not be¬ 
cause of their religion but because their standards of work and 
home are so different from ours. We also have laws excluding 
anarchists, criminals of all kinds, and illiterates, because their 
ideals would destroy what has taken so long to build up. Of the 
peoples whom we have admitted without restriction some have 
become foremost Americans, others have been hindrances. 

3 . Difficulties confronting the Immigrant. Immigrants have 
come to us so rapidly (in some years there have been as many 
as five millions) that it has often been difficult for them to find 
work and homes readily and to discover the real America. 
Americans for a long time did not realize how much the for¬ 
eigners had to learn. In his own country when a Syrian enters 
another’s house, he leaves his shoes at the door but keeps his 
turban on. When invited to dine with another he must always 
decline, expecting to be asked again and again. It is not only 
customs that the immigrant must learn here but new things. 
Even a stove is a mystery to many a newcomer. One immi¬ 
grant tried to make a fire by burning kindling in the oven. 
Ignorance of our minor customs and manners, however, can be 
overcome in a short time, once the newcomers are brought in 
touch with real American work life and home life. The deplor- 






THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 453 

able thing is that it should sometimes take years instead of 
months before they find the real America. 

4. The Barrier of Language. One great barrier is that of 
language. A Pole who lived in the Polish colony in New York 
City said that in the first eighteen months in this country he 
had no need to speak more than ten sentences in English. He 


© Keystone View Co. 

Immigrants getting their first daylight look at the Promised Land. What do 
you suppose they are thinking ? 

ate the same food, spoke the same language, told the same 
stories, had the same pleasures, quarreled about the same things 
as in Poland. This experience was not an isolated one. It was in 
a hustling city where there were day schools and evening schools, 
churches and libraries, that the following incident happened: 

An Armenian who worked in a cotton mill became discouraged with the 
small mill pay and asked an Armenian friend how to get another position. 
He was told to watch the newspaper advertisements, but these were in 
English. He found an American who would teach him English, but his 
price was too high. He had never heard of our free evening schools, but 
he did know about a wonderful missionary school in Syria. He decided 






454 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


that it would be cheaper for him to go back to Europe, learn English 
there, then return to America. So to Syria he went. Two years later he 
returned to a better position in the same mill, and learned that the city 
had night schools which would have saved him two years of his life. 

An experience as strange as this happened during the World 
War. An Italian-American, while with the army in France in 
1917, used much of his spare time reading books supplied by 
the American Library Association. When returning one of 
these he wrote, "Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place back 
home where a fellow could get books like this to read?” This 
foreign-born American had to go to France to learn that within 
two blocks of his New York home there was a free public 
library. 

Even when immigrants have overcome the barrier of lan¬ 
guage and have learned something of our customs, they often 
know only the dark, hard side of the United States. One man 
who came here as a boy said, "I forgot for some years that 
birds sing, flowers have odor, stars shine.” 

Gradually, however, the foreign-born in even the most con¬ 
gested cities learn of the parks, the free libraries and art mu¬ 
seums, the evening schools, and the community centers. But 
the American home many of them get acquainted with only 
after a long time, and some not at all. When after many years a 
young Russian was invited into the homes of his acquaintances, 
he said, "And oh, the home libraries, the musical instruments, 
the pictures on the walls, the striking clock! ” An immigrant 
girl who came to this country when she was six years old said 
she did not see a real American family until her thirteenth year. 
One day she visited the home of a high-school friend and 
learned that a part of the American home was the sitting-room, 
in which the family did "nothing but sit and talk”! At first 
her mother would not believe that American mothers played 
games with their children and wore white dresses on week days. 

5. Reasons for leaving Home. The addition to America of 
thousands of foreigners every year is so important an event in 
our national life that we need to understand how it takes place 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


455 

and who is responsible when things go wrong. It is a letter from 
a friend in the United States, or a hero book in which Wash¬ 
ington, Lincoln, and other Americans are described, or a cheap 
picture of an American scene, or the attractive poster of a 
steamship company, that is the first link in the chain that 



© Keystone View Co. 


Hundreds of thousands of newspapers in foreign languages are daily printed and 
read in the United States. Even the Chinese have newspapers of their own 


draws the foreigner to this country. Perhaps the man of the 
family comes alone, and after a little sends money to bring the 
rest of the family. The letters of the family to the friends left 
behind make them eager to try the great experiment also. In 
this way, group by group, the whole population of one village 
in Sicily migrated to the United States. At one time in Hun¬ 
gary the lure of America was so great that the government 
forbade lectures on the United States and made it illegal for 
steamship companies to advertise the attractions of America in 
newspapers and on billboards. 





COMMUNITY CIVICS 



456 

6. Men and Women without a Country. It is with his own 
government that the immigrant deals last, and it is with our 
government that he first comes in contact. Before he can be 
greeted by his friends here he has been interviewed, examined, 
and tagged by a series of United States government officials. 
Even before his ship weighs anchor on the other side of the 


Mothers who dress in white on week days and play with their children are a 
part of American life that seems strange to many immigrants 

ocean he has either directly or indirectly been inspected by 
American consular officials. No ship can enter a port of the 
United States unless the captain can show sailing-papers signed 
by the American consul at the foreign port from which he 
sailed. And the American consul does not give sailing-papers 
until the captain can satisfy him that all immigrants have 
properly made-out passports and, in some cases, doctor’s certifi¬ 
cates of good health. 

7 . The Part of America that the Foreigner first touches. 
The moment the ship reaches the United States, officials of the 
national government confront the newcomer. Officials of the 
public-health service (Department of the Treasury) examine 




THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


457 


each person to see that he has no physical ailment that will dis¬ 
qualify him; officials of the bureau of immigration (Depart¬ 
ment of Labor) examine him to see if he is of good character, 
can read and write, and pass the other tests established by law; 
customs officials (Department of the Treasury) examine his 
baggage to see that it contains nothing dutiable; and although 
the immigrant seldom knows it, detectives from the Department 
of Justice in Washington carefully scrutinize him to see that he 
is not a criminal or a dangerous person. Thousands of persons 
are every year turned back to the countries from which they 
come because of the failure to meet the legal requirements. In 
spite of this, however, many have been admitted who have not 
proved worthy of the opportunity. 

Usually the government officials with whom immigrants first 
have dealings after they are in their new homes are those of 
the police department and the post office. It is of the policeman 
that the newcomer learns of many of our ways—that fire es¬ 
capes cannot be used as sleeping-porches, that one cannot carry 
a big knife, that even in cold weather a person cannot spend sev¬ 
eral hours napping in a railroad station. It is also the police¬ 
man who secures his name and address as a part of the police 
census, from which the town or city makes its lists of taxpayers 
and from which truant officers obtain information about chil¬ 
dren of school age. At first the immigrant’s connection with 
the post office is slender. He may write a few letters, but it is 
probably long before he receives any. After a time, however, 
he becomes one of the most appreciative patrons of the post 
office. He deposits his savings in the postal savings depart¬ 
ment and sends letters and money to his home country through 
its foreign department. 

8 . How Town, State, and Nation take Notice of the Foreign- 

Born. For the most part the foreign-born person after he has 
found work lives the same kind of life that the American-born 
person does, and is helped by the same government depart¬ 
ments. There are, however, a few ways in which town and state 
take special notice of the foreign-born: 


458 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

The community officially 

1. Provides special evening or day schools, perhaps both, for the 
teaching of English, history, and civics. 

2. Provides community centers, where Americanization lectures and 
motion pictures are given. 

3. Provides (in the case of cities) special interpreters for municipal 
courts. 

4. Provides special foreign-language books in the local library. 

The state officially 

1. Has a special department or bureau of immigration which tries 
to see that immigrants are helped in every way possible. 

2. Has a state free employment bureau, with a special section for 
immigrants. 

3. Has a state library commission which has a special fund for pur¬ 
chasing books for foreigners to distribute to local libraries. 

4. Has a department or bureau of education which appoints a special 
agent or board to investigate immigrant education and to prepare special 
correspondence courses for immigrants. 

5. Has a department of labor that is interested in seeing that immi¬ 
grant labor is treated fairly. 

6. Has a department of agriculture that makes a special effort to 
get the right kind of immigrants onto farms. 

The nation officially 

1. Through the Federal courts makes the foreigner a citizen. 

2. By means of a special bureau of immigration in the Department 
of Labor helps put the immigrant in touch with work opportunities. 

3. Through the bureau of education supplies lists of books and 
courses of study suitable for teaching English and civics. 

4. By means of special treaties with foreign countries admits ambas¬ 
sadors and consuls and assists them in assisting immigrants from their 
countries. 

9 . One Instance of the Way a State helps Immigrants. One 
instance of the way in which some states help the immigrant is 
furnished by Wisconsin. To each immigrant who asks for 
information about farm opportunities in the state, the depart¬ 
ment of agriculture gives a certificate like the following, which 
is a kind of warning to dishonest land companies: 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


459 


To Whom it may Concern: 

The bearer.of 

. is in communication with this 

department and looking for a farm home in. 

County, Wisconsin. It is our purpose to keep in touch 
with him after his removal to this state, to note his prog¬ 
ress, and learn if he is fully satisfied with the business 
relations he may have with any person or firm selling him 
land. 

Any courtesies extended him will be appreciated. 

..191 


Director of Immigration 

An idea of the common-sense kind of help furnished is shown 
by some of the requests contained in the letters received by 
this department: 

I have secured land east of W-. Now if you know 

how to start and what to do, you are the people I’ll visit 
before I sharpen an ax. 

Let me know where I can get plans for a barn and good 
Holstein cows. 

Please inform me where I should write to in regard to 
Federal farm laws, or if convenient for you to do so, for¬ 
ward this letter to them. 

Send along one of those Traveling Libraries. 

California has a Commission of Immigration and Housing 
which will make an investigation and free report to any immi¬ 
grant concerning any particular tract of land which he may 
have visited and which he contemplates buying. 

10. Becoming a Citizen. Many a newcomer feels that he has 
become an American when he has learned English and has 
obtained a good position. Work means money, money means 
home—the two most common reasons for crossing the ocean. 
But no matter how successful the immigrant becomes as a 
worker or how well acquainted he is with our libraries, parks, 








COMMUNITY CIVICS 


460 

and other conveniences, he is a foreigner until he becomes a 
citizen. To become a citizen takes at least five years. 

At any time after landing, an immigrant who is eighteen 
years old, or over, can go before a court (a Federal or a state 
court, not a municipal court) and sign a printed statement 
which shows that he intends to become a citizen of the United 
States and to renounce allegiance to any other country. This 
statement is kept by the court, but an official paper is given 
the immigrant to show that he has made his " declaration of 
intention.” After he has lived in this country for five years he 
may take the second step in becoming a citizen, provided it is 
at least two years since he appeared in court to say that he 
intended to become a citizen. He obtains from the court a 
printed blank which states that the signer "is not opposed to 
organized government, is not a polygamist, and has, not less 
than two nor more than four years previously, filed his inten¬ 
tion of becoming a citizen.” When he has filled out and signed 
this, he leaves it, with the sworn statements (affidavits) of two 
citizens that he is a resident of the community and a person of 
good character, with the court. After ninety days—during 
which time the court may, if it seems wise, investigate the 
record of the applicant—he is notified to appear in court to be 
examined by the judge. If the applicant answers all questions 
satisfactorily and there are no witnesses to testify against him, 
the judge permits him to swear loyalty to the United States 
government, and by this act he becomes a citizen. A certificate 
often called "second papers” (the first certificate being the 
"first papers”) is given him as proof of his citizenship. 

These three steps, by means of which the immigrant gains 
citizenship, are known as naturalization. If the immigrant who 
thus obtains citizenship is the father of minor children, his 
children automatically become citizens also. 

11 . The Disadvantage of not being a Citizen. Before the 
foreigner becomes a citizen he has already enjoyed most of the 
advantages that America offers. Only a few privileges are 
denied him, but these are very great: 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


461 



1. The right to vote. 

2. The right to hold government office. 

3. The privilege of government employment. 

4. The right to serve on jury. 

5. The right to the protection of the government when traveling in 
foreign countries. 


© Keystone View Co. 

This chef and his assistant are making a cake to be the centerpiece for a 
banquet. Like many of our expert chefs they are foreign-born 

12. Not an Easy Task to become the Right Kind of Citizen. 

Even after he has become a citizen there are many things that 
the foreign-born person needs to learn about the United States 
before he can become helpful to the nation. If he does not 
understand that the men who have been our presidents and our 
leaders have succeeded only by the hardest kind of work; that 
equality in America means only equality of opportunity to work 
and to make a home; that it is not those who are most helped 
but those who need the least help who are the most fortunate; 
that in America the rich do not oppress the poor; then he cannot 
become the right kind of American. He cannot even become a 
good worker or a good home-maker. To correct the wrong 




462 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


ideas that many newcomers have in regard to the United States 
requires the continued assistance of 

1. Their employers, who have many opportunities, through special 
classes, well-informed foremen, and the right kind of literature. 

2. Their fellow workers, who, if they cannot explain what the true 
America is, can tell them of books and lectures that will. 

3. Their neighbors, who should make opportunities to talk with 
them to correct wrong ideas. 

4. Welfare workers, who have many unexpected opportunities. 

5. Church societies and other organizations, by means of forums at 
which well-known public men discuss government matters. 

6. Local, state, and national bureaus of immigration and other official 
departments, which send out lecturers to speak to the foreign-born. 

7. Writers for the periodicals which the foreign-born read. 

13. How the American-Born Person can help the Foreign- 
Born. It is the ordinary workers in every community who must 
help the foreigner understand American ideals. A person may 
say that he has not wanted immigrants to move into his town 
or neighborhood and therefore he has no responsibility. This is 
not so. As long as the laws of the nation permit immigrants to 
enter and to settle wherever they choose, each and every voter 
is responsible for their presence. Some of the ways in which 
the American-born person can do his duty toward immigrants 
are these: 

1. Use uniform courtesy in talking with them. 

2. Take their part on the street, in post office or railroad station, 
or wherever they are in perplexity because they cannot understand 
English. 

3. Investigate for yourself any case of injustice toward a foreign- 
born person whom you know. 

4. Explain to those with whom you come in touch about 

a. The nearest public school for children. 

b. The nearest evening school for adults. 

c. The nearest public library. 

d. The most economical stores in which to buy food and clothing. 

e. A good employment agency. 

/. The law about child labor and where a child must go for a 
working certificate. 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


463 


g. The nearest dispensary. 

h. The nearest place to buy pure milk. 

i. How to reach the church that they wish to attend. 

;. How to send money through the post office. 

5. Whenever you see them doing anything that is forbidden by law, 
tell them, for they probably are ignorant of the law. 

6. In the case of illness or death show your sympathy by some act 
of thoughtfulness. In the case of a wedding or any other gala event 
also show your interest. 

7. If the landlord does not keep the immigrant’s home in as good 
condition as the law requires, enter complaint to the proper authorities. 

8. If you hear policemen, street-car conductors, ticket agents, 
store clerks, speak roughly or discourteously to perplexed foreigners, 
make a complaint to the police commissioner, the street-car company, 
the railroad superintendent, etc. It is especially important that police¬ 
men treat the newcomers helpfully, for the policeman is the only gov¬ 
ernment official except the postman whom they see regularly. If a 
policeman is harsh and brutal, then the newcomer will believe that our 
government is harsh and brutal. 

9. Keep a few books on America’s great men to lend to your 
immigrant acquaintances. Many an immigrant admired our national 
heroes long before he came to this country. 

10. Be ready to show them how to take books from the public 
library. 

11. If you go into the home of an immigrant by invitation or on 
business, show the same respect for those whom you meet as for your 
most honored acquaintances. Above all things show no idle curiosity. 

12. Although one should not invite to his home those whom he does 
not know well, yet he should be on the lookout for opportunities to 
help the foreign-born make the right kind of home by seeing something 
of his. Perhaps in explaining about the gas meter, or how to repair a 
leaky faucet, or how to regulate the dampers of a stove, he can ask 
the foreigner to his home to "see how he does it.” 

13. If the school department fails to provide evening-school oppor¬ 
tunities for adult foreigners, see if some one or several of the Sunday 
schools will not start classes for teaching English, as so many have 
done for the Chinese. Or if there is an unused room in the public 
library, see if this cannot be utilized for such classes, provided teachers 
can be secured. If such classes are formed write to your state board of 
education or to your state bureau of immigration or to the bureau of 
education at Washington for advice as to books etc. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


464 



14 . The Outside World comes to the United States to Study. 

Not only have foreigners from all parts of the world come to the 
United States to work and find homes, but many of the young 
people of other countries have come here to study. In 1920 

more than ten thou¬ 
sand foreign students 
were studying in Amer¬ 
ican colleges. These 
students included a 
hundred and sixteen 
nationalities and were 
scattered through the 
forty-eight states and 
the District of Colum¬ 
bia. Every country of 
Latin-America was rep¬ 
resented. Up to 1920 
the country sending 
the largest number of 
foreign students to 
the United States was 
China. The second 
largest number came 
from Japan. 

Why should ancient 
Europe or Asia want 

© Old Masters Studio . 

A student at one of our American universities. Students to come to 

One look at her face shows that she finds a hustling young nation 

America a happy place to spend their univer¬ 

sity years ? Chinese 
and Japanese students came because here they were made more 
welcome than in any other country. China, especially, was full 
of gratitude and admiration for the one nation that had be¬ 
friended it so many times. But there is another reason why 
students came to the United States from both Europe and 
Asia—the spirit of America. When November n, 1918, came, 




THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 465 

and the greatest war of history was over, foreign nations 
realized that Americans were as ready to spend dollars as 
to make them, as eager to defend the right as to demand the 
right. This was a new photograph of America that many nations 
had not seen. The result has been that they have wanted 
their young people to learn in our universities not only the 
facts of literature, science, and history but something about the 
spirit of America. 

It is almost appalling to realize that among these foreign 
students are perhaps the future leaders of their countries. What 
will they say of America? Will they remember longest our 
slums, our unattractive villages, our carelessness, and our self¬ 
ishness? European and Asiatic, students will see our dirt and 
greed as well as what is clean and beautiful. They will see 
model factories that seem like castles, and others that are like 
gloomy prisons with workers whose eyes and voices have no 
gladness in them. For the most part, however, foreign students 
will live in the atmosphere of American students, and this is an 
atmosphere of eagerness to right all the world’s wrongs. The 
young people from other lands, then, will take back with them 
some of this same spirit of eagerness. 

As in so many parts of our life, the government has little 
to do with the foreign students who come here to study. It is 
the universities themselves or groups of Americans here and 
there who have unofficially made it possible for young people 
from another country to enter our colleges. One university 
offers each year a scholarship to that citizen of Mexico who is 
recommended by the American Chamber of Commerce of 
Mexico City. An American business man pays for the education 
in American schools of eight Albanians—four young women 
and four young men. 

The government, however, does what no single group of 
individuals could possibly do: it guarantees to foreign students 
free admittance to the United States and protection while they 
are here. This is accomplished through the treaties made with 
the other nations by the State Department. 


466 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


15 . Foreign Countries have sent their Men of Courage and 
Genius to the United States. Ever since America began its 
struggle to become an independent nation, men of courage and 
genius have been eager to cross the ocean to render us some 
service. Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, a gallant young 
Frenchman, came with other young French officers to fight in 
the Revolutionary War, and later remained to plan our capi¬ 
tal city of Washington. In recent years another Frenchman, 
Jacques Greber, was chosen architect for the improvement of 
Philadelphia, and an Italian, Dr. Luigi Luiggi, a civil engineer 
and professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of 
Rome, assisted as consulting engineer in the making of the 
Charles River improvements in Boston. Without the aid of 
gallant soldiers from Europe, Washington’s task in the Revolu¬ 
tionary War would have been far more difficult. The success 
of the Revolution was due in no small measure to the genius 
of Lafayette, to whom we have erected many monuments in 
this country. Rochambeau, sent to this country with six thou¬ 
sand French soldiers in 1780, gained the praise of two nations 
by his valiant services. Both Kosciusko, the Polish soldier and 
statesman, and Baron von Steuben, the German, distinguished 
themselves as officers in our army. 

When the University of Virginia was being built under 
Thomas Jefferson’s direction, he sent to Italy for special work¬ 
men to do certain parts of the stonework that Americans could 
not do. What is usually considered the best statue of Washing¬ 
ton is that by a French sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, who 
was commissioned for this task by the Virginia Assembly and 
came to this country for this special purpose. The massive 
panorama paintings of the battle of Gettysburg, at Gettysburg, 
are the work of a French artist, and the exquisitely beautiful 
walls of the Confederate Memorial Museum at Richmond, Vir¬ 
ginia, were painted by a Frenchman. 

Most of the world’s great musicians in the last twenty years 
have appeared before American audiences. There are men still 
living who tell almost reverently of hearing Jenny Lind, the 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 467 

Swedish girl, sing before an audience that packed to suffocation 
the hall in which it gathered; of the time when Sarah Bernhardt, 
the young French actress, made her hearers wild with enthu¬ 
siasm ; of the evening when women fainted in the theater where 
Junius Booth, the English actor, took the part of Shylock; 
and of that eventful day when a slender, dreamy-eyed Italian 
came to their city and made their hearts ache with sadness and 
then leap for joy at the music that he drew from his violin. In 
the summer of 1921, when the newspapers announced the death 
in Italy of the great tenor Enrico Caruso, in every part of the 
United States the people gathered in the streets, in hotel lob¬ 
bies, in the clubs, to say that it could not be true—such a 
voice could not die. 

Besides actors and musicians Europe has sent us each year 
for many years some of its writers, scientists, and heroes. 
Their presence has been a kind of practical course in interna¬ 
tional education for the American people. From the moment 
the ship bringing one of these distinguished foreigners reaches 
quarantine the newspaper reporters keep the people informed 
about his goings and comings. In a single year E. V. Lucas 
and W. L. George, English novelists, Sir Philip Gibbs, an Eng¬ 
lish journalist, Sir Oliver Lodge, an English scientist, John 
Masefield, an English poet, Blasco Ibanez, a Spanish novelist, 
Madame Curie, a French scientist, were a few of the best- 
known of the foreigners who traveled widely in the United 
States, lecturing and meeting thousands of Americans at recep¬ 
tions, clubs, and in private homes. Foch, the great French 
general, traveled through forty-two states, covering more than 
sixteen thousand miles, stopping at more than two hundred 
towns and cities, and receiving more than twenty honorary 
degrees from colleges and universities. 

16 . How Foreign Nations Officially come to the United 
States. There is another group of foreigners who come to the 
United States, remain here for a time, and then return to their 
own nations. They bring with them sheets of parchment or of 
fine linen paper on which is the great seal of their country. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


468 



These are ambassadors, consuls, secretaries, interpreters, and 
other assistants sent here by their governments to attend to 
the affairs of their nations in all respects where they touch 
American affairs. That is, the outside world comes officially 

to the United States. 


Ambassadors and min¬ 
isters (these titles differ 
only in name—countries 
of the first rank call 
their representatives to 
foreign countries of the 
same rank ambassadors, 
and representatives to 
other countries minis¬ 
ters) make their head¬ 
quarters in Washington 
so as to be in close touch 
with the official part 
of our nation. As we 
saw in Chapter VII one 
kind of laws are treaties 
which are drafted by 
our Secretary of State 
and the corresponding 
official in a foreign 
country. The ambas¬ 
sador or minister of that 
country in the United 
States often has an im¬ 
portant part in making 
and putting through such treaties. Even more important is his 
task of interpreting America to his home country and his home 
country to America. Foreign ministers watch public sentiment 
closely by reading the newspapers and talking with leading 
Americans. Often they give interviews to newspaper reporters 
and make public addresses to keep in touch with the people. 


© Keystone View Co. 

One of the picturesque distinguished foreign¬ 
ers—a patriarch from Palestine—who called 
on President Harding 















THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 469 

Consuls are commercial representatives of foreign countries. 
The consul-general usually makes his headquarters in Washing¬ 
ton, but the consuls are located at various ports and important 
business centers. They are news gatherers and distributors; 
they get facts in regard to trade conditions, laws affecting trade, 
peculiar customs, and prejudices, and notify their country of 
these. The United States sells about 10 per cent of its agri¬ 
cultural products and manufactured goods to foreign countries, 
and imports large quantities of fruits, minerals, and manufac¬ 
tured goods from other countries. Therefore to get an idea of 
what consuls write about in the letters which they send to 
Europe, Asia, and Africa, you will need first to examine the list 
of imports and exports. 

17 . No Foreign Nation can come to the United States Offi¬ 
cially without the Consent of the President. Before a foreign 
country can send an ambassador, a minister, or a consul to 
the United States, it has to be "recognized” by the United 
States. This is one of the duties of the president. When Cze¬ 
choslovakia, one of the new nations created by the treaty of 
Versailles, in 1918 sent a minister to the United States, the Sec¬ 
retary of State notified the President that such a minister had 
arrived in Washington. The President in turn notified the Secre¬ 
tary of State that on such a day and hour he would be glad to 
receive the minister. But when that same year Russia, which 
was in a state of revolution and controlled by the revolutionists, 
sent a minister to this country, President Wilson refused him 
recognition, and he was finally required to leave the country. 
By receiving the minister from Czechoslovakia the President 
was recognizing the new little nation of Czechoslovakia, and by 
refusing to receive the minister from Russia the President was 
refusing to recognize that nation. In other words the United 
States refused to be on speaking terms with Russia, because its 
rulers had secured their power not by consent of a majority 
of the people, but through bloodshed. Czechoslovakia had 
organized its government and chosen its president in a lawful 
manner. 


470 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


There is something dignified and fine in the habit of the 
United States in recognizing only those countries that can show 
to the world that they have a legal government. Neither the 
people of the United States nor the presidents approved of 
the rule of the Czars in Russia and they had only a feeling of 
horror toward the Turkish government under the Sultans. But 
it is not the business of one nation to take away from the 
people of another nation the privilege of building up its own 
government. Therefore the United States recognized the Czars 
of Russia and the Sultans of Turkey as long as the people ac¬ 
cepted these rulers. Inefficient and barbaric as the old rulers of 
China had been, the United States recognized them, because 
they were the rulers whom the people accepted. When finally 
the younger Chinese set up a republic, this was recognized by 
the United States as soon as it was evident that it had the sup¬ 
port of the earnest, educated people. By this act the United 
States was helping China take its place in the modern world. 

It is the same with consuls as with ambassadors—they 
must be acceptable to our Department of State at Washington 
before they are allowed the privileges of foreign officials. When 
any country wishes to add to the number of consuls in the 
United States, it makes this request to its minister at Wash¬ 
ington, who in turn repeats the request to the Secretary of 
State, who refers it to the president. 

18 . Official Foreigners have Special Privileges in the United 
States. By treaty we grant foreign ambassadors and con¬ 
suls greater freedom than is given any citizen of the United 
States. A minister or his secretary, a consul or his assistant, 
may run his automobile faster than the law allows, but he 
cannot be arrested for overspeeding. Even if he should kill a 
pedestrian, the law cannot touch him. Releasing foreign am¬ 
bassadors and consuls from all restraint and placing them 
"above the law” merely means that they are our guests, and 
we extend to them all the privileges and exact none of the 
duties of private citizens. At the trial of the slayer of President 
Garfield the minister from Venezuela, who had seen the act of 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


47i 

assassination, was called as a witness. Before he was sworn 
the district attorney made this statement to the court: 

If your honor please, before the gentleman is sworn, I 
desire to state, or rather I think it due to the witnesses to 
state, that he is the minister from Venezuela to this gov¬ 
ernment, and entitled under the law governing diplomatic 
relations to be relieved from service by subpoena or sworn 
as a witness in any case. Under the instructions of his 
government, owing to the friendship of that government 
for the United States, and the great respect for the memory 
of the man who was assassinated, they have instructed him 
to waive his rights and appear as a witness in the case, the 
same as any witness who is a citizen of this country. 

Before we entered the World War German and Austrian offi¬ 
cials . secretly worked against the United States, which had 
trusted and honored them as guests. Our treaties with Ger¬ 
many kept us from acting against these officials until we had 
actual proof that they were breaking faith with us. Then the 
President punished them in the only way that honor and dig¬ 
nity would permit—he notified the nations from which they 
came that their representatives were not pleasing to the United 
States and must be recalled. Even though our government had 
proof that the German ambassador had been guilty of base 
treachery, he was guaranteed a safe journey home. Up to 1900 
three British ministers, two French, one Spanish, and one Rus¬ 
sian minister had been sent home by this government. 

19 . Special Messengers to the United States. Since the World 
War there has been a steady stream of special official and un¬ 
official missions from foreign countries to the United States. 
In a single year ten different countries,—Argentina, Australia, 
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Neth¬ 
erlands, Spain,—in addition to their regular consular agents, 
had set up regular purchasing agencies in New York City. A 
naval commission from Argentina came to buy electrical ap¬ 
paratus, machinery and fittings, and coal; Bulgaria’s agent 


472 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


purchased material and machine tools for factories; and Japa¬ 
nese agents, steel for Japanese navy yards. Other groups came 
hoping to borrow money to develop some business or to lend to 
their home government to meet pressing obligations. 

Perhaps of all the official and unofficial foreign delegations 
to the United States the most interesting was the first Chinese 



© Keystone View Co. 

These Chinese were recently sent to the United States on an important mission. 
They were only one of many such groups of foreign visitors in a single year 


mission of 1867. China was then a monarchy, still living in 
the past, its people fearful and distrustful of foreigners within 
their own territory and having no interest in traveling in other 
countries. But our first minister to China, Anson Burlingame, 
had so opened the eyes of the sleepy nation that it was ready to 
make trade treaties with other countries. But even the best- 
informed Chinese officials were timid, and it was only when 
Burlingame agreed to their urgent request to become the head 
of the mission that they were ready to undertake the adven¬ 
turous trip. The following is the letter which this mission bore 
from the Chinese emperor to the president of the United States 
and the heads of England and France: 







THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


473 


His Majesty the Emperor of China salutes: 

In virtue of the commission we have with reverence 
received from Heaven, and as China and foreign nations 
are members of one family, we are cordially desirous of 
placing on a firm and lasting basis the relations of friend¬ 
ship and good understanding now existing between us and 
the nations at amity with China. And as a part of our 
genuine desire for that object, we have specially selected 
an officer of worth, talent, and wisdom, Anson Burlingame, 
late minister at our capital from the United States of 
America, who is thoroughly conversant with Chinese and 
foreign relations, and in whom, in transacting all business, 

... we have full confidence as our representative and the 
exponent of our ideas. . . . 

Dated this sixth day of the twelfth month of the sixth 
year of our reign. Lung Chih 

It was a strange mission—orientals, representatives of one of the 
oldest nations of the Old World seeking help from the youngest 
of the nations of the New World. A reporter, in describing the 
state dinner given the envoys at the White House, said: 

It was a singular sight to see those ancient Asiatic 
countenances, lighted by the conceit and shaded by the 
tyrannies of four thousand years, led by the smooth-faced 
Anglo-Saxon, beneath the shadow of the Eagle and the 
Stars, to receive the welcome of men whose creed it is to 
hate idolatry and despotism, and whose only ineradicable 
custom it is to despise caste and ceremony and stability. 

20 . A Great Event in World History. While this Chinese 
delegation was the most interesting of all the foreign missions 
that have come to the United States, probably the most impor¬ 
tant was the conference of foreign delegates in 1921-1922. It 
was under the shadow of the Washington Monument, in the 
Pan-American building, that the momentous conference was 
held. Here, in an attractive but simple and unpretentious room, 
the first successful attempt to make war more difficult was car¬ 
ried out. The official representatives of China, Japan, England, 


474 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Holland—all of them 
nations that were ancient before this nation was born, all 
nations that had had emperors, kings, or queens, that had seen 
weary stretches of warfare and years of famine and plague due 
to war’s ravages—came to the capital city of Washington to 
plan ways of beginning the limitation of naval armaments. 
Every foreign official who was at this Washington conference 
carried back to his home country the memory of a plain, 
straightforward President, a plain, straightforward Secretary 
of State, and a large array of simple, direct assistants who said 
what they meant and meant what they said. In 1918 a million 
of our soldiers talked plainly and forcefully with courage and 
weapons and showed all the world what unofficial America was. 
In 1921 our President, Secretary of State, and the other officials 
showed all the world what official America was. It was one of 
the greatest single lessons in democracy that the world had had. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read this and the following chapter before studying either in 
detail. Make a brief outline of the two as if they were one chapter. 

2 . Find out about the foreign-born population of your community 
and state. Make a study of the two countries from which the two 
highest numbers of immigrants in your state come. Learn (1) what 
form of government each has; (2) what are its chief occupations; 
(3) what are the causes for emigration; (4) what beautiful things and 
attractive customs exist there; (5) what are the most important facts 
in the past history of the nation; (6) who some of its great men 
have been. 

3 . Find the passage in the Federal Constitution that prevents states 
from making immigration laws that conflict with Federal laws. What 
are some of the laws dealing with immigrants passed by your state ? If 
the state has a bureau of immigration learn what its duties are. 

4 . Find out from the last census report what is the foreign-born 
population of your state and in what sections the greater part of it is 
located. In some states whole suburbs of manufacturing cities and 
whole rural communities will be made up of the foreign-born or the 
children of foreign-born. Does your 'state have such centers ? 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


475 

5 . If any foreign-born live in your community, let the class as a whole 
find out (i) the number; (2) the countries from which they come; 
(3) the streets on which they live ; (4) the places in which they work; 
(5) the churches they attend; (6) their amusements; (7) their banks 
and stores; (8) whether they can speak and understand English; 
(9) how many of them attend evening school; (10) what newspapers 
and books in their own language they have access to. To make this 
study, pupils will have to have special assignments, but all pupils should 
enter the information in their loose-leaf notebooks. 

6 . Re-read what is said about leadership in Chapter X. Has your 
community leaders among the foreign-born? What are some of the 
things that need to be started to help this part of your community ? 

7 . On page 462 is given a list of some of the ways in which Americans 
can help the newcomers of their neighborhood. In many large cities a 
stranger cannot take books from the public library unless two known 
residents recommend him. Find out if this is the rule of your public 
library. If it is, how could you help a newcomer in this respect? 

8. Not all savings banks and trust companies are reliable. Suppose 
that your civics class has been asked to recommend a reliable savings 
bank to a foreigner. How would you go to work to learn about any 
given bank in your community ? It would seldom be wise to say that a 
certain bank was not safe, but it would always be permissible to say 
that you knew that a certain bank was reliable. (See page 412.) 

9 . If a foreign-born person should tell you that he was going to re¬ 
turn to the Old World because America is "no good,” what questions 
would you ask him? What would you tell him about the part of 
America that is fine and helpful that he has perhaps misunderstood? 
Arrange such a conversation between two members of the class, allow¬ 
ing the other pupils to be onlookers who may take part in a general 
discussion after the conversation is finished. 

10 . What has your community as a whole or any private organization 
or individual done to entertain a foreign guest or to make the immi¬ 
grant feel welcome ? What might it do ? 

11 . Who are some of the foreigners who come here on special errands? 
Name several important missions of the last few years. Search the news¬ 
papers to find references to foreign students, business men, consuls, 
ambassadors, authors, and other foreign visitors. 

12 . In such annual reference books as the World Almanac and the 
Statesman’s Yearbook you will find a list of the ambassadors, ministers, 


476 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


and consuls to the United States. Examine this list to see what coun¬ 
tries are not represented. Find out the reasons for this. 

13 . If you live in a city, search your directory to learn if any foreign 
consuls have offices in your community. If they do, perhaps your prin¬ 
cipal would approve of inviting one of them to speak to the civics class 
on his duties and what he thinks of America. In a way he is the guest 
of your community as well as of the nation, and the school should show 
him every possible courtesy. Whether or not you can entertain any such 
guest, plan a program for such an occasion. 

14 . Assume that in the nearest large city consuls from England, 
France, Italy, and China are stationed. Try to imagine yourself in their 
places; that is, you are to send frequent letters of information to 
your home country telling about the coal, steel, cotton, automobiles, 
shoes, etc., that business men there may wish to buy, and also reporting 
on the possibility of their finding a market for the things they want to 
sell. Find out a few of the things that are made or grown in your state 
which are exported to foreign countries, and a few of the things from 
other countries that come into your state. 

15 . Tell all that you can about the conference held in Washington to 
discuss the limitation of naval armaments. Why was this conference 
a great historical event that will be mentioned in all the histories that 
pupils in all countries study ? 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA —II 

1 . Many of the World’s Treasures have come to America. 
While the tide of immigrants who are to live here and help 
change the nation is the most important part of the outside 
world that comes to the United States, other parts are also 
changing the nation. Some of the best of the Old World is here 
in the form of paintings and other rare art works. In the Met¬ 
ropolitan Museum of New York City is a world-famous col¬ 
lection of miniature portraits. Among these is a portrait of 
Mary Queen of Scots which at one time belonged to Charles 
the First and bears his initials. These portraits are likenesses 
of some of the world’s most famous persons and also the work 
of some of the world’s greatest artists. In the residence of a 
wealthy New York man is a private library whose vaulted en¬ 
trance is supported by columns of greenish marble taken from 
a famous French chateau, and its floor is paved with stones 
brought from Rome; here is a collection of rare manuscripts— 
yellowed sheets of paper before which men whose names we 
mention with reverence once sat dreaming until their dreams 
could be written down in words. Robert Burns’s "Auld Lang 
Syne,” Sir Walter Scott’s "Waverley,” "Ivanhoe,” and "The 
Lady of the Lake,” Byron’s "Don Juan,” Keats’s "Endymion,” 
are a few of the treasures among these manuscripts. 

2 . Art Museums and Libraries contain Some of the World’s 
Rare and Beautiful Things. Every art museum and most of the 
large public libraries in the United States contain some of 
Europe’s or Asia’s art treasures. Among the Old World treas¬ 
ures owned by the Metropolitan Museum of New York City is 
the famous gold cup made by Italy’s wizard silversmith, Ben¬ 
venuto Cellini of Florence. In another museum in New York 

477 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


478 

City are two bronze Arabic doors which came from a mosque 
in Cairo, Egypt, built in 1380. The Institute in Chicago con¬ 
tains a collection of Wedgwood china which surpasses the 
similar collections in London. In this Chicago museum, among 
the many Old World treasures, there is also Rembrandt’s por¬ 
trait of his father, painted by the famous Dutch artist in 1630 
and purchased for Si 10,000 by an American. 

3 . The Carnegie Institute at Pittsburgh owns the most val¬ 
uable single collection of Japanese carved ivory in the world. 
In one of the quietest corners of the Boston Art Museum is a 
piece of marble as mellow as soft ivory, which was carved in 
Greece about 500 b. c. It is a head of Aphrodite—so exquisite 
that when it was first obtained by the museum, students of 
Greek art came long distances to study it. San Francisco has 
one of our rarest foreign treasures,—Millet’s "Man with the 
Hoe.” When the news was flashed over the wires in April, 1906, 
that a great fire was spreading through the city, the first 
thought of art-lovers everywhere was a hope that this painting 
would be saved. 

4 . Many American Homes have Art Treasures from the Out¬ 
side World. Not only has America brought from the outside 
world rare and beautiful things for its libraries, museums, and 
other public buildings, but it has purchased lavishly of tapes¬ 
tries, laces, jewels, paintings, sculpture, for the adornment of 
its private homes. The decorations of one home have been de¬ 
scribed as 

all original antiques collected abroad, and each the most 
perfect specimen that skill could select and money buy. 

The chimney-pieces are nearly all elaborate works in 
marble from old Italian palaces; the ceilings of several 
rooms have been taken bodily from famous buildings in 
Europe. ... In the principal hall a portrait of Charles I 
by Van Dyck, hangs at one side of a short flight of steps 
and a religious piece of Lorenzo Costa on the other. . . . 

The walls [of the ballroom] are entirely covered with 
paneling . . . which was once in the chateau of Phoebus 
d’Albert near Bordeaux. 



"The Blue Boy”—the famous Gainsborough painting which an American 
bought from its English owner. All England mourned the loss of one of its 

best-loved pictures 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 



There are few homes in the United States among even the 
poor and lowly which have not some photograph, print, rug, 
or piece of china that has come from over the seas. This is 
especially true of photographs of the world’s great paintings. 
The "Mona Lisa,” the "Sistine Madonna,” the "Spanish Cava¬ 
lier,” the "Last Sup¬ 
per,” the "Angelus,” 
the"Songof the Lark,” 
the "Age of Inno¬ 
cence,” are familiar to 
every person. Prob¬ 
ably nowhere in the 
world is there a master¬ 
piece that cannot be 
found in photographic 
or print form on the 
walls of some home, 
school, library, or mu¬ 
seum in the United 
States. Long before 
Reims Cathedral was 
ruined by enemy’s can¬ 
non in the World War 
it had been known and 
admired by Americans 
through photographs 
and written descriptions of it. Such famous pieces of sculpture 
as the "Winged Victory,” the "Dying Gladiator,” and busts of 
such celebrities as Socrates, Caesar, Cicero, Vespasian, Nero, are 
known to us by their frequent appearance in the form of either 
photographs or plaster-of-Paris or bronze reproductions. 

It would be a much-changed world for most of us if suddenly 
we had to strip from our communities the beautiful things that 
are the work of Europe’s genius. Not only would the humble 
home miss the framed photographs of Europe’s paintings and 
famous buildings but it would be deprived of some of its most 


© Mary H. Northend 

A corner of an American home showing a mir¬ 
ror, a sofa, and a rug that came from Europe 




























THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 481 

attractive upholstered furniture, mirrors, draperies, whose pat¬ 
terns and shapes are copies of originals made centuries ago in 
the Old World. The mirror that hangs in one modest home is 
incased in a gold-finished frame shaped like the back of an old 
Spanish chair. A comfortable chair in another home is covered 
with modern tapestry made in France and copied from rare 
old tapestries. 

The beautiful part of the outside world has come among 
us to stay and will continue to come if we have the desire to 
bring it to us. In a single year from France alone over ten 
million dollars’ worth of "original paintings, statuary, and 
works of art one hundred years old” were sold to the people 
of the United States. 

5 . The Poorest Person can have Some of the Outside World’s 
Works of Art. There is another kind of work of art that has 
come into this country in large quantities and is coming cease¬ 
lessly. No person is so poor that he cannot own at least one, 
and no person is so isolated that he cannot have access to many. 
These are the poems, essays, novels, and musical compositions 
of every country and every century. Defoe’s "Robinson Cru¬ 
soe,” Stevenson’s "Treasure Island,” Wyss’s "Swiss Family 
Robinson,” are known to every boy in the United States. An¬ 
drew Lang the Scotchman, Hans Andersen the Dane, Grimm 
the German, and Perrault the Frenchman have written some of 
the world’s best fairy tales, which have been translated and 
printed in the United States by the ton. The stories of Dickens, 
Scott, Thackeray, George Eliot, Victor Hugo, are only a small 
part of the wealth of foreign fiction that has come to America. 

We have American poets of whom we are proud, but just as 
no American artist or sculptor can take the place of the 
Raphaels, Michelangelos, Rembrandts, of the art world, so no 
American writers can take the place of Homer, Virgil, Horace, 
Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Byron, Burns, and many others. 
Shakespeare is almost as well known to Americans as George 
Washington. Dante’s face can be found in bronze in art shops 
and department stores everywhere. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



482 

Not only the great painters, sculptors, tapestry-designers, 
writers, of the world have come to America, but all the great 
musical composers have found their way to us through printed 
copies of their compositions. Every winter we have symphony 
concerts and a season of grand opera, where the greatest music 


© Harris & Ewing 

On the walls of the dining room of the White House are priceless tapestries 
that were made centuries ago in Europe 

of Italy, France, Germany, Poland, and Russia is played. Short 
selections from symphonies and operas have been printed for 
young people to learn and reproduce on piano or violin. For a 
modest price anyone can buy phonographic records of Old 
World masterpieces. 

6 . Many Historic Relics have come to America. In addition 
to things of beauty, many objects of great historic value for 
our museums have been brought into the United States from 
distant parts of the world. These are relics of past ages dug 
out of the earth of ancient countries by exploration companies. 








THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 483 

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is an 
Egyptian tomb built about 2650 b. c.— nearly five thousand 
years ago—and brought to this country in 1913. It cost more 
than a year of time and many thousands of dollars to tear this 
down in the desert of North Africa, stone by stone, and rebuild 
it in the heart of the largest city in the world. A special build¬ 
ing inside the museum’s court had to be made for it. This 
tomb is a valuable lesson in history, for the paintings and writ¬ 
ing on the walls give us a faithful account of habits and condi¬ 
tions of the people of that time. 

In 1921 the Egypt Exploration Society excavated the site of 
a city that flourished on the banks of the Nile three thousand 
years ago. It was a city founded by a visionary young Pharoah 
who hoped to rule the world through peace instead of through 
conquest. But after his death drifting desert sands buried this 
city, and even its name was forgotten until American and 
British pickaxes laid it open. Here were found houses, gar¬ 
dens, kitchens, just as they were worked in. Photographs and 
models of these buildings and rooms have been brought to the 
United States, and many of the relics have been divided among 
the museums. 

So the outside world of yesterday as well as that of today is 
brought to this New World nation of ours. If there is any 
person who believes that the United States can raise barriers 
against either the past or the present of the outside world, he 
knows little of what is going on today. The forces that are 
drawing all the world to us, and us to all the world, are like a 
great flood that cannot be stayed. 

7 . How Government affects the Part of the Outside World 
that comes to America. Neither people nor things can enter the 
United States without the permission of the government. It is 
the bureau of immigration that carefully inspects all persons 
who seek admission into the United States and the customs 
department of the Treasury Department that inspects all 
"things” which the ships from every quarter of the earth bring 
to our ports. It refuses admittance to some things, such as in- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


484 

toxicating liquors, aigrettes, sealskin garments, it charges a fee 
for admitting other articles, such as tea, coffee, and cotton, and 
lets some things come in free. Among the many things which 
cannot enter the United States until the owner pays a fee to 
the government are paintings, books, music, sculpture, photo¬ 
graphs, except those purchased by or for libraries, colleges, and 

museums open to the 
public. 

At each port is 
stationed an official 
known as the collector 
of the port, who is ap¬ 
pointed by the presi¬ 
dent. Under him is a 
large body of inspec¬ 
tors and clerks who 
secure their positions 
through the civil serv¬ 
ice. These must know 
the involved rules and 
regulations about the 
thousands of articles 
that are shipped into 
this country. They must know a real jewel from an imitation 
jewel, real lace from imitation lace, a genuine work of art from 
a skillful imitation. On their knowledge and honesty depend 
the detection of fraud and the protection of honest persons. 

Another important way in which the government is con¬ 
nected with the beautiful things brought into this country is 
through the treaties made by the State Department guarantee¬ 
ing protection and trade privileges to the Americans who go to 
Europe to buy and to the Europeans who come to this country 
to sell. Foreign salesmen are guaranteed whatever protection 
the United States gives its own citizens, whether they bring a 
few hundred dollars’ worth of goods or carry with them royal 
jewels or priceless tapestries. 



The Cellini cup in the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art is one of Europe’s treasures that now 
belong to America 




THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 


485 



8 . The Outside World comes to America through the News¬ 
papers. Day and night, in peace time and in war time, the news 
of the world crosses the ocean by cablegram, wireless, and letter. 
Some newspapers give 
a whole page once or 
twice a week to sum¬ 
marizing foreign news. 

One daily issue of the 
New York Times , be¬ 
sides advertisements 
of foreign steamship 
companies, banks, and 
hotels, contained thirty- 
three news items 
from foreign countries. 

American newspaper 
and magazine writers 
live in the principal 
foreign countries, hunt¬ 
ing down important 
news and forwarding 
it to some special paper 
or to the Associated 
Press, an organization 
which gathers and sells 
news to most of the 
newspapers in the coun¬ 
try. Not only are there 
special gleaners of 
foreign news but there 
are special editors who 

interpret for their readers the cable dispatches that are neces¬ 
sarily incomplete. Always with a map before him the " foreign ” 
editor studies the cablegrams left on his desk and, by means of 
the knowledge gained through years of study, interprets the 
messages for his readers. Books of reference, the latest con- 


One of the many works of art that America has 
bought from Europe. The painting, called " The 
Last Token,” is a scene of the Roman days 
when Christians died for their faith 



COMMUNITY CIVICS 


486 

sular reports, the most authoritative works on history and inter¬ 
national law, and much data accumulated by the newspaper 
library are ready for his use. Many a foreign news editor knows 
more about a nation of the Old World than the ambassador 
sent to it by the president, and perhaps he often serves his coun¬ 
try better, for many readers gain their only knowledge of for¬ 
eign affairs from the newspaper. 

9 . The Outside World has come to America with Money. 
Just as it has been the steady stream of immigrants that gave 
us enough workmen to become the greatest industrial nation 
of the world, for many years it was the steady stream of 
Europe’s and England’s savings that helped make it possible 
for us to hire the immigrants to work for us. In a recent year 
nearly five billion dollars of the money of British, French, and 
other foreign nations were invested in this country. This meant 
that the American people could develop their factories, their 
coal mines, and their railroads more rapidly. 

Our government neither helps nor hinders foreigners who 
invest their savings in the United States, except in the ways 
that it helps and hinders the American people themselves. It is 
state laws which are the chief protection against fraud, and 
these laws do not distinguish between native and foreign in¬ 
vestors. During the World War, however, the national govern¬ 
ment, through an alien-property custodian appointed by the 
President, took charge of all property of our enemies, whether 
this consisted of ships in our harbors or stocks held in vaults. 
This property, valued at $400,000,000, was held as security for 
the damage which was done our shipping and our citizens during 
the war. One of the pieces of property thus seized was that 
of the Transatlantic Trust Company of New York City, which 
was owned by three large banks in Hungary. It employed a 
thousand agents and did business with over sixty thousand 
immigrants. In 1914, by using the savings of its immigrant 
depositors, it helped finance the war for Germany and Austria. 
When the United States finally took possession of this bank, 
it was dissolved and no longer exists. 


THE OUTSIDE WORLD IN AMERICA 487 

10 . Foreigners can and often do own Parts of the United 
States. It was a surprise to many Americans to learn that any 
of the wealth of this country was owned and controlled by men 
in distant countries, most of whom had never even been in this 
country. But there is no Federal law which forbids this, al¬ 
though some states have laws preventing any alien from owning 
certain kinds of property, chiefly real estate. In one year citi¬ 
zens of one foreign nation owned 20,000,000 acres of land 
in this country—a single syndicate having title to 3,200,000 
acres in Texas, 3,000,000 acres of wheat and grazing lands in 
Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois, 2,000,000 acres in Colorado, Wy¬ 
oming, and New Mexico, and nearly 2,000,000 acres in the 
state of Mississippi alone. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Re-read the outline that you made in connection with the study of 
Chapter XVII. Discuss both chapters as a whole, using this outline. 

2 . Make a survey of your community to find out what "things” from 
the Old World it contains. The school, the library, and the stores will 
show many such things. Perhaps you can learn of some of the beautiful 
things in the homes of the community that were made in the Old 
World or are copied from them. 

3 . If possible visit the nearest large library or museum and study some 
of the books, paintings, and other works of genius that were made in 
other countries. If you cannot do this, choose some world-famous work 
of art that is now in the United States. Learn all that you can about it 
from encyclopedia, magazine, newspaper, and catalogue. Secure a picture 
of it if possible. 

4 . For your work in Chapter XIII you have probably already secured 
a catalogue of the nearest art museum. Study this and from it make 
a careful list of perhaps ten pictures or other art objects from foreign 
countries that you will plan to see at your earliest opportunity. Once 
you have made your selection, you will be surprised to find how much 
information about these comes to your attention in your reading. 

5 . From the teacher of drawing or art in your school find out about 
some of the wall paper, tapestry, and other designs in American-made 
goods that are copied from Old World designs. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


488 

6. Take the textbook of English literature used in your school and 
make a list of twenty of the works of world-famous authors discussed 
there with which you are familiar. 

7. Prepare yourself to demonstrate to the class how much the news¬ 
paper helps to bring the Old World to the United States. Take any 
day’s issue of a large city daily paper. Underscore in red all the items, 
editorials, and advertisements that refer to other countries. Let the 
class see this marked paper. Then summarize for them the news con¬ 
tained. Do not miss anything. 

8. Turn to some book of reference like a World Almanac or the 
Statesman’s Yearbook and find out what were the principal imports of 
the United States last year. From what countries did these come? How 
greatly would you be inconvenienced if all these imports were cut off ? 

9. From the same reference books learn how much revenue the 
United States collected on these imports. How would the pocketbook 
of everyone be affected if the imports were cut off ? 

10. In all the principal ports of the United States there is published 
some kind of daily or weekly shipping paper, giving the latest shipping 
news. The paper published at Boston is called Boston Marine Guide ; 
the San Francisco paper is a daily publication called The Guide ; that of 
Portland, Oregon, is the Portland Daily Shipping News. Buy a copy of 
the shipping paper of your nearest port. If you cannot learn the name 
of this paper in any other way, write to the secretary of the chamber 
of commerce of that port, inclosing a stamped addressed envelope. See 
how much you can learn from this paper about the foreign trade of the 
United States and the part that the government has in this trade. 


CHAPTER XIX 
AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 

1 . America has gone into Every Part of the World. "The 
United States in all the world” is as much a fact as "All the 
world in the United States.” When for the first time the statue 
of liberty in New York Harbor was illuminated by powerful 
electric lights at night, the flags of all the nations of the world 
were draped about the statue. This was to symbolize that men 
from every nation of the globe had helped make America what 
it is today. Not only have all the flags come to America but the 
Stars and Stripes have gone to every country. American busi¬ 
ness men, missionaries, students, travelers, and scientists have 
penetrated even the most remote countries and there have dem¬ 
onstrated to foreign peoples what America is. The cable, the 
wireless, the steamship, the aeroplane, have made it possible for 
American tradesmen, American goods, and American news to 
travel swiftly and far. 

Because of this constant reaching out into distant parts of 
the world the Americans who will never travel outside their 
own country need to learn to think across oceans and around 
the world. One way of keeping up this kind of long-distance 
thinking is through learning about the kinds of errands on 
which Americans go abroad, what kind of Americans go on 
these errands, and how American money is spent in foreign 
countries. A complete account of the work and adventures of 
Americans abroad would fill many books. Here we can give only 
enough to let the student get a glimpse into the ever-widening 
reach of American energy and enterprise into other lands. 

2 . The Most Eventful Journey of Modern Times. In all his¬ 
tory the most eventful journey of the people of any nation into 
another country was that silent journey in 1917-1918 of about 

489 


490 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


two million American young men across the Atlantic in huge 
vessels, their hulls so camouflaged as to blend with the sur¬ 
face of the sea by day, and their portholes and decks so dark¬ 
ened as to be lost in the blackness of sky and water at night. 
Something clutches men’s throats today when they remember 
that it was the finest from every state in the Union that went 
on that journey, and that a hundred thousand of them did not 
return. As long as books are written and read, the tale of the 
long journey of American soldiers to fight in a foreign land, 
for and with the people of that land, will be read and told. 

All war is horrible, and no war known to history was so 
ghastly as the World War, yet it accomplished one great good: 
it made America and Europe acquainted as they could not have 
become in a century of ordinary years. Americans broke bread 
with Europeans, talked in a new mixed language with them, 
worked with them, played with them, and died with them. 
Perhaps not within the lifetime of any person who reads this 
book can historians estimate the effect upon the world of this 
momentous event. 

Soon after the close of the war the slogan of some of the 
people and of many of the politicians was "America First,” 
which was their way of saying, "All the rest of the world sec¬ 
ond ! ” But it was too late to cry " America First,” for when the 
first American marines landed in France, America had gone 
into Europe to stay. There were many white crosses on the 
hillsides of France, on which were painted the names of Ameri¬ 
can boys. At the quickest it is a week’s journey from New 
York to the French-American cemeteries, but as thought and 
memory travel, it is only a second’s journey. And the thought 
of every American who cherishes one of these white crosses 
takes that swift journey each night and morning and will for 
years to come. And the memory of several million young men 
flashes again and again to the little villages and camps where 
they prepared for battle and dreamed of home. American 
politics, American business, American greed—all are helpless to 
prevent America’s stay in France, and France means Europe. 



© DeWitt Ward 

The spirit of the two million Americans who went to France to fight has been 
admirably shown in this Brooklyn monument by Augustus Lukeman 









492 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


3. A Few of the Ways in which the United States goes into 
the Outside World. In one day’s issue of a newspaper dis¬ 
patches about the following incidents appeared: 

1. Paris had just given a royal welcome to the Harvard College Glee 
Club, which, for the first time in the history of the college, was making 
a concert tour in France. 

2. A delegation of Americans had been sent by Virginia to present 
to England a bronze copy of Houdon’s statue of Washington (the 
original of which stands in the state capitol at Richmond) as a "message 
of friendship from undivided Virginia and from the undivided South.” 
This was to be placed in Trafalgar Square, London, and was to be 
accepted by the British secretary of foreign affairs for the British 
government. 

3. The first lecture had been given at Mansion House, in the chair 
of American History, which had been established by Sir George Watson 
to help Englishmen understand American institutions and characteristics. 

4. An American summer conservatory of music had started its first 
term at Fontainebleau in a French palace through which Louis the 
Fifteenth had roamed. A three-months course at a reasonable fee was 
offered to Americans who should pass the examination, under the best 
skill that the musical world of France had to offer. 

5. One hundred and sixty young Americans, mostly college students, 
had sailed from New York for Italy to attend the fetes commemorating 
the six-hundredth anniversary of Dante’s death and to place a memorial 
wreath on the poet’s tomb at Ravenna in behalf of institutions of learn¬ 
ing in the United States. This group of students being the first official 
college delegation of American students to Italy, the Italian government 
planned to give it an official welcome. 

6. Miss Anna Vaughn Hyatt, the American sculptor, had sailed for 
France to superintend the erection at Blois of a duplicate of her eques¬ 
trian statue of Joan of Arc, which stands on Riverside Drive, New York 
City, overlooking the Hudson. Blois is the town which Joan of Arc 
made her headquarters at one time. The site of the statue is the top 
of one of the hills, overlooking many miles of farms and villages. 

7. The American colony in Lima, Peru, which belonged to an associa¬ 
tion called the American Society of Peru, had voted to give the Peruvian 
government a set of traveling libraries in commemoration of the cen¬ 
tenary of Peruvian independence. 

8. There was soon to be dedicated in Peking, China, the Union Med¬ 
ical College, built by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


493 


Foundation. To celebrate the dedication an international medical con¬ 
ference was arranged, and scientists from America, Europe, and the Far 
East had been invited. 

9. The twenty-four American graduates to study for one year in uni¬ 
versities in Belgium had just been chosen by the Education Foundation 
of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, of which Herbert Hoover 
was president. This Foundation was established by Hoover at the re¬ 
quest of the Belgian government, which, when the American relief 
commission was disbanded, wished to have a lasting memorial of the 
commission’s work in feeding the country’s 7,500,000 inhabitants during 
the war. The choice of attending the universities of Brussels, Ghent, 
Liege, Louvain, the School of Mines and Metallurgy at Mons, or the 
Higher Colonial School at Antwerp was given the students. 

In these nine dispatches of one day’s news six countries on 
four continents are represented. These acts of American cour¬ 
tesy and friendliness were but drops in the ocean of interna¬ 
tional life. A statue placed in a city square or on a country 
hilltop, a few spirited songs sung, a wreath laid on a poet’s 
tomb, a few books given away here and a building or two there 
—trifles, perhaps, in themselves, but they stand for the things 
as big as eternity. The Virginians who presented the Wash¬ 
ington statue to England showed by that act that they under¬ 
stood and appreciated England’s appreciation of America’s 
great statesman and general, to whom a British general once 
gave his sword in surrender. No person in France heard the 
songs of the Harvard Glee Club without remembering that it 
was boys like the singers—hundreds of thousands of them— 
who helped them defeat Germany. 

After the World War America went to Europe temporarily 
and permanently more extensively than she had ever gone be¬ 
fore. Out of the many ways one can mention only a few: 

1. In Fontaineroux, a village whose fruit orchards before the war 
were famous all over the world, is a proud little school with the sign 
"Ferme Ecole de Pittsburgh” over its gate. It is a farm school for boys, 
the gift of the school pupils of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first 
pupils were all war orphans who wished to become farmers and fruit 
growers as their fathers had been. 



494 COMMUNITY CIVICS 

2. Many Americans contributed toward the success of the plan to re¬ 
build the ruined village of Pinon with American money and to lay out 
the streets and plan the homes and public buildings in accordance with 
the most modern ideals of health, beauty, and convenience. The plan 
was to "combine all the artistic features that make French villages 
beautiful and all the sanitary improvements that make American cities 


© Brown Bros. 

Thousands of war orphans in France have been clothed and fed by Americans 

attractive,” and thus to make Pinon an inspired pattern for the rebuild¬ 
ing of the other five thousand villages that were destroyed in the war. 

3. The first city of Poland to have a public playground for its young 
people was the historic city of Czestochowa. This was the gift of 
American school children through the Junior Red Cross. The whole city 
park was given over to the enterprise, and Americans laid out tennis 
courts, croquet areas, baseball diamonds. The opening day was a fete 
day. An altar had been erected on a famous hill where two hundred 
monks once saved Poland from a Swedish invasion, and there special 
religious services were held to celebrate the opening of the playground. 

4. The Sunset Club of New York City "adopted” sixty penniless old 
people of Nouvron, one of the ruined villages of France, giving money to 
help them rebuild their homes and buy chickens and necessary articles. 



















AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


495 


4. Going into the Outside World through the Red Cross. 

One of the chief agencies through which the United States goes 
into all parts of the world as a helper is the American Red Cross. 
One has only to be. reminded of incidents like the following to 
realize how much the 
American Red Cross 
has helped the United 
States show Europe 
that it is something 
more than a money¬ 
making nation: 

1. Off the coast of Si¬ 
beria, near Vladivostok, is 
a small island which in the 
winter of 1918 was sud¬ 
denly transformed into a 
children’s island. Because 
of thetroubledconditionin 
Russia eight hundred Rus¬ 
sian boys and girls had 
been sent into Siberia by 
their parents. At first 
they received money from 
home, but after a time no 
letters came through, and 
those in charge of the 
children appealed to the 
American Red Cross to 
come to their assistance. 

The Red Cross responded 
immediately, chartered four special trains, and conveyed the little colony 
to Vladivostok and then to the island, where the children had swimming, 
books, games, and motion pictures, and even school. The school was 
so well organized that it was officially recognized by the government at 
Vladivostok. Eighty-five per cent of the children completed the regu¬ 
lar school curriculum, and 15 per cent of the boys graduated from the 
''commercial school.” 

2. When in the spring of 1919 the island was no longer a safe home for 
the refugees, the whole colony was transferred to a trig little steamship 



© Underwood & Underwood 


When, in 1922, Smyrna was filled with refu¬ 
gees fleeing from the Turk, the American Red 
Cross sent tons of clothing 




496 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


obtained from the Japanese. With the red cross painted on her sides, 
the vessel was turned toward the United States, and in due time reached 
San Francisco, from which it proceeded by way of the Panama Canal 
to New York, thence to Brest, and then to Keivisto in Finland. The 
colony was then taken to a little town near the Russian frontier, where 
they lived until, in the fall of 1920, the Soviet government demanded 
their return. And so the children were made ready, taken to the frontier, 
and there, at the point where the nation of Finland ended and Russia 
began (indicated by a white flag), in single file these hundreds of chil¬ 
dren, well fed and well dressed, turned their bright, wistful faces toward 
a land full of poverty and terror, not knowing what was before them. 
Twenty years from now eight hundred men and women will think, every 
time they hear the word "America,” of the year spent on the little 
island in the Pacific and the round-the-world trip under the protection 
of the Stars and Stripes. 

The American Red Cross is a semiofficial agency of the na¬ 
tional government. By act of Congress, January 5, 1905, it was 
incorporated 

To continue and carry on a system of national and in¬ 
ternational relief in time of peace and to apply the same in 
mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence, famine, fire, 
floods, and other great national calamities, and to devise 
and carry on measures for preventing the same; 

To furnish volunteer aid to the sick and wounded of 
armies in time of war in accordance with the Convention 
of Geneva; 

To act in matters of voluntary relief and in accord with 
the military and naval authorities as a medium of com¬ 
munication between the American people and their army 
and navy. 

This means that in time of war or of special need, when either 
Congress or any group of American people wish to send workers 
or money to foreign countries, the channel sanctioned by the 
government is the Red Cross. Its headquarters are in Wash¬ 
ington, D. C., and it has branches in every state. Its activities 
are supported by the yearly dues of its members and the gifts 
of public-spirited citizens. 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


497 

5 . Going into the Outside World by Means of Missionaries. 

The workers whom the American Red Cross sends into other 
countries do not remain. They return as soon as a definite 
thing has been accomplished. There are, however, thousands 
of Americans who go on errands of helpfulness to other coun¬ 
tries and live there for many years, sometimes for the rest of 
their lives. These are teachers who establish schools, doctors 
who open up dispensaries and hospitals, students who translate 
English books into foreign languages, missionaries who teach 
Christianity. On July 4, 1918, a year after Jerusalem had been 
captured from the Turks by the British, a procession of children 
wearing "Yankee Doodle” paper caps and carrying toy guns, 
the Union Jack, and the Stars and Stripes, paraded through the 
city along the road that leads from the Damascus gate. The 
Union Jack was the flag of the city, but why the Stars and 
Stripes? The children were American—the children and grand¬ 
children of Americans belonging to a little colony in a quiet 
corner of the city. The colony had been founded by a Chicago 
man and twelve other Americans, who went to Jerusalem to 
try a great experiment. As soon as they had mastered the 
Arabic language they opened a school for Arabs and Jews 
which gained so great a reputation that they soon had over a 
thousand pupils. 

During the World War the Turkish government gave to this 
American colony the management of its soup kitchen, in which 
for two years nearly four thousand people were fed daily. But 
the work whose effect will last longest was the quiet helpful¬ 
ness of the long stretch of pre-war and after-war years. 

The door in the flowering courtyard of the main build¬ 
ing of the colony—there are nine or ten buildings—stands 
ever open to wayfarers from all lands, including even the 
Bedouins, those wild roamers of Arabia, who find special 
quarters in readiness for them always. Guests come un¬ 
bidden and stay at their pleasure, without price and with 
or without money, leaving behind them when they go much 
or little, something or nothing. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


498 

6. What our Missionaries have done. It was a prominent 
Englishman and not a boasting American who said: 

From the slopes of Mount Ararat all the way to the 
shores of the blue .Egean Sea American missionaries have 
scattered broadcast over all the distressful land the seeds 
of American principles. . . . 

In a recent year there were in the Near East eleven American 
colleges, thirty-three boarding-schools and high schools, and 
four hundred schools of other grades. One of the best known of 
these is Robert College in Constantinople, which was founded 
by Cyrus Hamlin, a Maine boy. One of his accomplishments 
was the revolutionizing of bread-making in Constantinople. He 
built modern ovens and taught the natives how to mix the 
dough and how to bake it properly. Soon American bread as well 
as American principles was being spread through the city. Grad¬ 
ually all of Turkey and the neighboring countries learned of 
this college which taught both the common people and royalty. 

The teaching of America’s struggle for liberty and the facts 
about the life of the American people in this college fired 
the students who came from Bulgaria, Roumania, and Serbia 
with a desire to gain freedom for their peoples. At one time a 
Robert College graduate was prime minister of Bulgaria, an¬ 
other was Bulgarian minister at Constantinople, a third min¬ 
ister at Athens. 

The efficient work of American helpfulness has not been 
confined to the Near East. Every continent and every nation 
has been entered successfully by Americans who have wanted 
to share with others the advantages of the United States. Not 
many years ago, in the province of Mozambique, Africa, there 
were certain tribes that "had never heard of ink. There was 
among them no history, no book, no dictionary, no alphabet. 
They could not tell what paper was, but called it a leaf, using 
the same word as for leaf on a tree.” It was an American mis¬ 
sionary who invented a written language for them and taught 
them how to write. The laborious work of making a written 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


499 


language out of a crude spoken language, and of translating 
important English books into so difficult a language as that 
of Chinese, is the kind of work that missionaries have been 
doing quietly but diligently for more than a generation. For 
many years an American secretary of the Christian Literature 



An American bakery in Constantinople (see the sign over the owner’s head). 
It was an American who first taught the people of this city how to bake 


bread in ovens 


Society, with the help of Chinese assistants, kept China in 
touch with much of the best in American literature. On the 
shelves of this office are more than two hundred different books 
in Chinese, translated from the English by American mis¬ 
sionaries and scholars. An American missionary was engaged 
by the Chinese government to translate into Chinese Wheaton’s 
"International Law,” the book which taught the Chinese that 
there is a force greater than any one nation that binds all 
nations together. 









500 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


7 . Going into the Outside World through Scientists and 
Engineers. Almost as important as the missionaries and teachers 
who have gone from the United States to every part of the 
world are the scientists and engineers—the modern explorers. 
In 1861 an American professor of geology, Raphael Pumpelly, 
was employed by the Japanese government to explore the island 
of Yezo to search for coal and other mineral deposits. He then 
went into China, and there, for the Chinese government, made 
an examination of the coal fields in an isolated part of the 
empire where no foreigner had ever penetrated before. Part of 
the time he pushed his way along the streams in a small Chinese 
boat, but much of the journey was made on foot. It has been 
good for America that the earliest men to penetrate these dis¬ 
tant countries were brave and hardy, with knowledge and 
courage that even savage tribes respect. 

When China formed its first cabinet there was established 
a department of mines with an alert Chinese at its head, and 
for its "director general” a foreigner was chosen to attend to 
the enormous task—Herbert Hoover, an American. Hoover 
built railways, developed cement works, and even made a har¬ 
bor to give his coal a sea outlet. It was at this time that a sec¬ 
ond peaceful invasion was made into Hunan to make surveys 
for a railroad which was to be the first step in developing the 
untouched coal resources of the province. 

This surveying delegation mapped out the best route for the 
railroad and made many corrections in the imperfect maps of 
the region. They went unharmed into villages which had never 
seen foreigners before, and the Stars and Stripes was the first 
foreign flag to fly within the walls of the capital of Hunan. At 
the end of their long journey, when the Americans reported that 
no obstacles from hostile natives had been met, the Chinese dig¬ 
nitaries said: "You showed no fear, consequently the people 
feared you; you neither molested nor interfered with anyone, 
therefore the people respected you; you paid regular prices for 
your purchases, and did not permit your attendants to steal, 
therefore the people liked you.” 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


50i 


American engineers have gone into every part of the globe to 
do such difficult work as laying railroads, bridging rivers, tun¬ 
neling mountains, dredging harbors, and building piers. In 
many instances they have done their country greater service 
than the American soldier, because the soldier serves only his 
own country, while the engineer contributes to the prosperity 
of the foreign nation. Today the American who travels at ease 
over one of the principal railway lines in Mexico may happen 
to see at a lonely spot near the track four plain wooden crosses. 
These mark the graves of four American surveyors who were 
pegging out a path for the railroad when they were attacked 
and killed by hostile Indians. 

Building a railroad through the Andes Mountains of South 
America was one of the "impossible” tasks that an American 
engineer made possible. At one point this railroad attains an 
altitude of over twelve thousand feet. This railroad, which cost 
more than $200,000 per mile and over seventy-five hundred 
lives, was begun and the most difficult part of the work planned 
and carried through by an American engineer. Another South 
American railroad, which has been called "the most isolated 
railway in the world,” the Madeira-Mamore, was also surveyed 
by an American engineer and a large number of American as¬ 
sistants. Because of the heat, the swampy nature of the coun¬ 
try, and the distance from supplies, a large part of the workers 
died of disease. Guayaquil, the chief port of Ecuador, was for 
many years noted chiefly for its unhealthiness, but in 1916 a 
New York company of engineers was given the contract of 
making the port sanitary, a gigantic task for which American 
engineers were prepared. And these are only a selected few out 
of the long honor list of American engineers and skilled workers 
who have gone into foreign countries. 

8. Americans have gone into the Outside World to Fight. 
Just as in our Revolutionary War valiant young Frenchmen 
and Poles came to America to fight in our army, so justice- 
loving young Americans have helped fight the wars for freedom 
in other parts of the world. It was the official United States— 


502 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


the nation as a whole—which in 1917 went to war with Ger¬ 
many and sent an army of young men to France. But already 
there were thousands of American boys fighting and dying un¬ 
der the flags of Canada, England, France, and Belgium. These 
were college boys and young business men who had left books 
and desks to join the armies of Belgium and France. 

It was nearly a hundred years earlier—in 1821—that other 
American young men had crossed the Atlantic Ocean to fight 
for the hard-pressed little nation of Greece, which was strug¬ 
gling to throw off the oppressive rule of the Turk. There is one 
name among the honor roll of Americans who fought for Greece 
that we should all remember—Samuel Gridley Howe, who, 
three years after graduation from a medical school, sailed for 
Greece, joined a band of insurrectionists, and lived their life 
among the mountains, " feeding upon sour milk, snails, or 
nothing.” When he no longer fought for the Greeks with a gun, 
he turned to relief work and was the means of saving "a large 
part of the Greek people from destruction.” 

That Americans should have fought for a nation like Greece 
was not to be wondered at, but for Americans to have joined 
a Chinese army in its attempt to put down a rebellion seems 
a little strange. Yet that is what happened in i860. For ten 
years the Taipings, an uncivilized tribe of China, had con¬ 
trolled a large part of southern China, killing or starving more 
than twenty million people and ruining more than six hundred 
cities. The armies of the emperor had been helpless before these 
savage hordes, but in i860 an American named Frederick T. 
Ward went to Shanghai and asked the Chinese government to 
let him try to recapture certain of the cities held by the rebels. 
He enlisted a small number of foreigners, mostly Americans, 
and with only about a hundred men made a bold assault, cap¬ 
turing the principal gateway in the wall of one of the cities and 
holding it until the imperial troops could enter the city. After 
that first victory the tide turned, the Chinese commissioned him 
a general, and he led their forces from one success to another. 
Every year from 1862 until the overthrow of the monarchy in 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


503 


1911, the officials of the Chinese government made a pilgrimage 
to his tomb and offered sacrifices, according to their religious 
custom. 

9. Americans have gone into the Outside World to Live. 
There is another important way in which the United States goes 
to other parts of the 
world. This is through 
the Americans who make 
their homes in different 
foreign countries. Such 
men as Henry James, 
the celebrated novelist, 
who made his home in 
England, or F. Marion 
Crawford, an American 
author, and Elihu Ved- 
der, an American artist, 
who chose Italy for their 
homes, carried to Europe 
some of the best of 
America. 

Most of the Americans 
who go to Europe to re¬ 
main are those who came 
to the United States as 
immigrants and lived 
here many years. Just 
as there is a steady stream of foreign-born immigrants entering 
the United States, so there is a constant but much smaller 
number of foreign-born leaving the United States. At the close 
of the World War the migration to Europe became a vast 
movement. In Chicago alone a hundred thousand Poles planned 
to set out for Poland. What kind of messages do these carry 
back? What kind of lives do they live in the home countries to 
which they return? It is not so important what they say as 
what they do. 



© Keystone View Co. 


Many a Russian peasant has bought his 
first land with money sent by his relatives 
in America 



504 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


To all the poverty-stricken sections of Europe, America is 
best known as the land in which much money can be earned. 
Many get only this one picture, but even this half knowledge 
has given them the feeling of hopefulness and good cheer. In 
one year 4317 emigrants sent home to a single county in Croatia 
$560,860, which was used to buy land and houses. In rural 
Poland large areas of land had been purchased with money 
earned in America. 

When Booker Washington visited Sicily he found in one of 
the sulphur mines a man with whom he had once worked in a 
coal mine in West Virginia. A traveler through Czechoslovakia 
in 1920 saw American faces, American ways, and the American 
flag wherever he went. In the Slovak Museum at Turviansky, 
the first sight that met his eyes was the American flag draped 
over the main stairway. In another town a Slovak pianist in¬ 
troduced himself as an American from Chicago. In a furniture 
factory the foreman was a Slovak who had lived for several 
years in America, and a boy worker in a paper factory had 
been attending high school in the United States only a month be¬ 
fore. The private secretary to the first minister of state in 
Lithuania was the humble little bookkeeper in the office of a 
Lithuanian printer in Worcester, Massachusetts, before the 
war. In her new position she translated all official documents 
and found many ways in which to make the real America count 
in the real Lithuania. The first governor of Ruthenia was a 
Ruthenian American who had practiced law in Pittsburgh for 
many years. 

Not all foreign-born Americans who have returned to their 
native countries have taken with them the spirit of the real 
America. Many have done harm not only to the America which 
they have left behind but to the countries to which they have 
returned. 

In 1920 an American on a Norwegian steamer was astonished 
to find that many of the passengers were Americans returning 
to their old homes to stay. They were really starting life anew. 
This seemed puzzling, and so the American began to ask ques- 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 505 

tions and to write down what was told him. Most of his notes 
read something like this: 

1. Swedish husband, Norwegian wife. He is a skilled glass-cutter. 
Says "America is all right except for the people that run it.” This 
couple have been fifteen years in America. Will settle in Sweden. 

2. Old Norwegian woman, forty-eight years in America and has never 
revisited her old home. Is going back to stay. Says "America isn’t 
what it used to be.” 

3. Norwegian, about forty years old. Been six years in America. 
Was crippled by a fall in a mine. Speaks very bitterly of America, 
which he never wants to see again. 

4. Norwegian, wife, and four children. Came over in 1903. Origi¬ 
nally a mechanic, but has for some years had a good real-estate business 
in a northwestern city. Says he got all his education in America and is 
grateful for it, "but human beings have some rights. It isn’t the old 
America any more. That was fine country, a real freedom’s land, but 
not any more.” 

A great deal of injustice was done the foreign-born during the 
tense years of war. Because a few of the foreigners among us 
turned traitors, all foreigners were looked upon with suspicion 
by some unthinking people, but this was only a temporary con¬ 
dition. The whole world, including the United States, had been 
turned topsy-turvy; the Norwegian-Americans had not waited 
for the world to right itself. 

10. Americans have gone into the Outside World to Study. 

America has gone into the outside world in still another way— 
to study. If you turn to the biography of an American architect, 
artist, or musician of note, you will probably find some such 
statement as this which describes the architect of the Memorial 
Quadrangle given to Yale University in memory of a student 
killed in the World War. 

James Gamble Rogers, born in Kentucky, schooled in 
Chicago, studied architecture in the Ecole des Beaux Arts 
in Paris, creator of the Courthouse and Brooks Memorial 
of Memphis, the post-office buildings at New Orleans and 
New Haven, the Yale Club in New York City, etc. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


506 

Europe is ancient and is stored with the works and memories 
of the world’s greatest architects, artists, musicians, and schol¬ 
ars. Many of the little towns in which our soldiers were quar¬ 
tered during the World War were old when the Mayflower 
pushed its way across the Atlantic. It is no wonder, then, that 
American boys and girls who are ambitious for an artistic 
career turn to these countries. Each year ninety-six American 
students, known as Rhodes scholars, are registered at Oxford 
University. Paris and other European cities have thousands of 
Americans in their art and music schools. 

But Americans have not been content merely to enter the 
schools already established; they have in a number of cases 
created new schools for American students. The American 
Academy in Rome and many schools in other parts of the world 
were built by Americans with American money. 

11 . Americans have gone into the Outside World with Gifts 
of Money. The United States has been the greatest giver of 
all the nations of all time. All the little enterprises that we 
have enumerated on an earlier page—the gift of a statue to 
England, the establishment of a children’s library at Brussels, 
the building of a medical college in China—have required 
money as well as thought, time, and service. But in addition to 
these constant streamlets of money flowing from the United 
States, there have been many large outpourings at times of 
special need. In the winter of 1920-1921 famine stalked over 
the war-weary lands of Europe, and people died by the thou¬ 
sands. It seemed impossible to save all the starving ones of 
Europe, but if American money came quickly enough a great 
army of children could be kept along until the next harvest. 
Ten dollars would save one child, so "invisible-guest certifi¬ 
cates” were sold at ten dollars all over the United States. In 
buying a ticket each person was acting as host to an unknown 
little waif—an invisible guest. Within a few weeks $35,000,000 
went from the American people to these children. 

During the war years the flow of gifts of money from the 
United States to the suffering in every country never ceased. 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


507 


The American Poles contributed over $20,000,000 for Polish 
relief. Between 1918 and 1920 at least $1,000,000,000 was sent 
to Europe by the people of the United States unofficially to 
help the destitute and ill. During the 1920-1921 famine in 
China a Far-Eastern relief fund was started in the United 
States, and at once in store and home windows Chinese hunger 
cards appeared, each card showing that someone within had 
contributed to the relief fund. Fifteen million dollars was 
either cabled to China for the buying of food supplies in the 
nearest market or was used in buying supplies in this country 
to send to the East. 

In spite of the money sent to Europe and China during these 
years thousands of people starved to death or died from the 
effects of exposure. The story told in the following newspaper 
dispatch, dated Paris, June 21, 1921, was issued by the statisti¬ 
cal department of the American Red Cross, which vouched for 
its correctness: 

Every day during the next fifteen months a thousand 
men and women, Russian refugees in Europe, will die of 
neglect and starvation diseases. They are perishing at the 
rate of forty or fifty an hour, and it will take probably a 
year and a half for all of them to die. Nothing of any last¬ 
ing value is being done to save them. I say "men and 
women,” because most of the children among them have 
already died. 

And in the United States, in spite of widespread unemploy¬ 
ment, there was comfort and luxury everywhere! A wave of 
weariness had swept over the country and held many people 
in its clutch. There were still in every community people who 
would have helped if they had realized what was needed, but 
there were not enough leaders to do the hard, thankless work 
of publicity, of raising the money and seeing that it was spent 
wisely. When people are busy about their ordinary tasks it 
takes skillful leaders to attract their attention to troubles in a 
distant country. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


508 

12 . Americans have gone into the Outside World to Trade. 

America has gone into all the world to buy and sell. In the prov¬ 
ince of Hunan, China, which the American railway engineers 


The spirit of American skippers in the early days was as daring and fine as 
that of the pioneers who pushed over frontiers westward. (From a painting 
by William Steeple Davis) 



> Thos. D. Murphy Co. 


were the first foreigners to penetrate, they found American 
cigarettes and American face powder. Today there are Ameri¬ 
can sewing machines in the interior of India, China, and Africa. 
As early as 1821 Salem (Massachusetts) had a hundred and 
twenty-six ships in the China trade. By 1840 over two hundred 
thousand Americans were connected with foreign shipping and 





AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


509 

trade. These were the days when a "British or Dutch bark 
with upper yards bare, making slow headway across the Pacific 
or Indian Oceans” could see astern "a pyramid of snow-white 
canvas appear over the horizon and in the course of a few 
hours sweep proudly by—a Yankee clipper from New York to 
Hongkong or Batavia, flying unreefed royals, and with top¬ 
gallant studding sails out to catch every bit of breeze.” It 
was of these days also that De Tocqueville wrote: 

The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only 
sets sail when the weather is favorable. . . . But the 
American . . . weighs anchor in the midst of tempestu¬ 
ous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to 
the winds; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his 
vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when at 
last he approaches the end of his voyage, he darts onward 
to the shore as if he already descried a port. 

For many years all the great ports of foreign countries knew 
this adventurous, aggressive America. But today American 
goods are carried largely in foreign vessels manned by foreign 
crews. So it is a slightly different America that the modern 
world meets at its ports and at its places of trade. It is an enter¬ 
prising, pushing, sometimes selfish, and often thoughtless Amer¬ 
ica that trades in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia. 

The United States sells wheat, rails, steam engines, harvesters, 
cigarettes, face powder, boots and shoes, hot-water bottles, and 
hundreds of other articles to different parts of the world. When 
President Loubet of France was one day showing an American 
over his estate, he pointed to a group of workers harvesting 
grain, and said, "I am stating no more than simple truth 
when I tell you that without American harvesters France 
would starve.” A single consignment of harvesters to Russia, 
valued at five million dollars, filled three thousand freight cars 
when they were shipped from Chicago to New York, there to be 
transferred to a chartered fleet of nine steamships. So energetic 
have the American agents been in demonstrating the value of 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


5 io 

these machines to farmers in far-away places that today an 
American harvesting machine is noisily at work in some part of 
the world every month in the year—January, in Argentina; 
February, in Upper Egypt; March, in East India; April, in 
Mexico; May, in China; June, in Spain; July, in Iowa; August, 
in Canada; September, in Sweden; October, in Norway; No¬ 
vember, in South Africa; December, in Burma. 

More interesting than figures of our foreign trade are such 
facts as those contained in the government’s publications 
which print requests for information from business men in for¬ 
eign countries. One issue contained such requests as the fol¬ 
lowing : 

770. A firm in Algeria wishes to buy nails of all kinds, 
machine bolts, and garden tools, such as spades, rakes, 
and hoes. . . . Correspondence should be in French. 

773. A man in Switzerland desires to purchase com¬ 
plete machinery and equipment for the treatment of me¬ 
dicinal herbs. Correspondence should be in French or 
Russian. 

781. A correspondent in Brazil is in the market for two 
or even three all-steel cotton compresses worked with oil 
engines and pumps complete. 

786. A man in Venezuela who intends to establish a 
sole-leather tannery desires to be placed in communication 
with consulting-engineer firms for designing and equip¬ 
ping tanneries and tanners’ machinery. 

790. A city in Chile desires to purchase a crematory for 
refuse for a city of about twenty-five thousand population. 

13. Americans have gone into the Outside World with their 
Savings. In the past the American people have sent their money 
abroad to buy luxuries and necessities, but in the last twenty- 
five years the savings of the people have increased so rapidly 
that many millions of dollars have also been sent to foreign 
countries to work there. Some idea of the extent to which the 
United States has gone abroad with money to invest is given by 
these figures for the years 1919-1921: 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


5ii 

Money invested in foreign countries by private individuals in a single 


year: 

I 9 I 9 .$300,000,000 

J 9 2 o.235,000,000 

1921 (nine months) ......... 250,000,000 


Between 1918 and the fall of 1922 the American people had 
lent $4,000,000,000 to European countries to help build fac¬ 
tories, repair mines and railroads, and for other aids to industry. 
Mr. Hoover said that without these four billion dollars thus 
lent and without the one billion that the people gave to Europe 
during these four years, "Europe would have fallen to pieces 
economically.” 

In 1922 the American money at work in Chile, South Amer¬ 
ica, amounted to over $64,000,000, and was invested, some of 
it in the republic of Chile itself, some in a water company of 
Valparaiso, a small amount in an electric-power company, and 
many millions in copper mines. Most of the money sent to 
Mexico has been working in the national railroads, but many 
millions have also found their way to light and power com¬ 
panies, the Mexican telegraph and telephone company, and at 
least $20,000,000 to the Institution for the Encouragement of 
Work and Development of Agriculture. 

In 1913 Congress passed what is called the Federal Re¬ 
serve Act, one of whose provisions was granting to national 
banks with a capital and surplus of $1,000,000 or more the 
privilege of establishing foreign branches. Before this no na¬ 
tional bank had been permitted to have branches either in 
the United States or in foreign countries. By a later act—the 
Export Finance Act of 1919—banks can be organized in the 
United States with power to buy foreign stocks and bonds of 
foreign railways and other foreign enterprises and resell these 
to Americans. 

It would be impossible for American money to go abroad 
without the thought and concern of the people following it. So 
this is another of the bonds between the United States and the 
outside world. 




512 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Consult the latest issue of the World Almanac, or the Statesman’s 
Yearbook, or some other reference work in which you can find a list of 
the different nations of the world. Copy this list into your loose-leaf 
notebook and search the newspapers for references to these nations. Set 
down whatever seems to you important from the point of view of (i) our 
state department, (2) our business men, (3) our philanthropists. Prob¬ 
ably the class will be divided into groups for this search, each group 
taking certain countries, but all students should set down the facts 
gleaned. 

2 . In the list referred to in 1, there will be certain countries that 
may not be mentioned at all in the newspapers. A special study should 
be made of these to find out what diplomatic and trade relations the 
United States has with them. 

3 . Take some large city daily newspaper which gives world news and 
cut out all the items (similar to those given on page 492) referring to 
Americans or American activities in foreign countries. Arrange these in 
two groups: (1) those dealing with what the people do unofficially and 
(2) those about the government’s activities. Subdivide these according 
to countries. Discuss these in class, then file them away to use in later 
exercises. 

4 . The American Red Cross is referred to as a semiofficial organiza¬ 
tion. What do you understand this to mean? (Do you know of any 
other semiofficial organizations?) Explain the ''Geneva convention.” 
Is any member of your family a member of the Red Cross ? What are 
the annual dues? Since the Red Cross must be ready to respond 
instantly to emergency calls, show why it is necessary for it to have a 
large membership. 

5 . When the American Red Cross goes into foreign countries it is 
usually only for short periods. In what ways do some Americans go into 
the outside world to stay ? Can you think of any not mentioned in the 
text? The careful reading of the newspaper may suggest some of the 
things which keep Americans in other countries. 

6. If you belong to or attend any church, find out to what countries 
it has sent missionaries. Probably these have been sent under the 
auspices of some church society. Find out how this society gets its 
money and how many missionaries it has sent out. If you have heard 
some missionary or have read of the accomplishments of medical 
workers, teachers, and other workers in the mission field, tell about them. 


AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 


513 

7. The text gives a little information about Robert College. Find out 
more about it. Study the map to see its central location. How many 
races and nations have special interests in Constantinople ? 

8. Give several reasons why the United States is the only foreign 
country which enjoys the full confidence and esteem of the Chinese. 

9. What is a scientist ? an engineer ? Professor Pumpelly was a scien¬ 
tist and Herbert Hoover an engineer. Explain the difference in the work 
of the two men in China. A timid man or a man afraid of hard work 
could never be either a successful scientist or a successful engineer. 
Explain why. 

10. The United States has built so many miles of railroads, drained 
so many swamps, changed the courses of so many rivers, that it has a 
large corps of trained engineers. What are some of the difficult achieve¬ 
ments of our engineers in the United States ? 

11. Do you see any relation between the free public schools, the inex¬ 
pensive or free colleges and technical institutes, and the fact that we 
have had expert engineers to send into other countries ? 

12. Do you think it right or wise for Americans to fight in other 
countries? Find out all that you can about the struggle in Greece in 
which many Americans fought. 

13. American citizens remain Americans in foreign countries unless 
they formally renounce allegiance to the United States and formally 
accept citizenship in the country in which they wish to live. Name 
some Americans who have become foreigners. 

14. If there is a large foreign-born population in your community 
find out if many have returned to the home country within the last few 
years. The priests, rabbis, and clergymen can give some information 
about this, so can the local banks. 

15. Are you planning to study or travel in a foreign country? If so, 
tell about it. Have any of the musicians, artists, and doctors in your 
community studied in Europe? If so, where? 

16. Europeans have often called Americans money-mad. Suppose 
that someone has made this statement to you in good faith. Assemble 
the facts that you would use to prove that this is not true. Be prepared 
to take either the negative or affirmative side of this question in a 
class debate. 

17. In Chapter X the need of leaders was discussed. What would 
a person have had to do in 1921 to "lead” the people of the United 
States to save from death some of the refugees mentioned on page 507 ? 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


5M 

18. One of the ways that the student can get into the outside world 
while still in high school is by means of the forum plan. The class or 
school organizes as a forum, officered by students, meeting at the hour 
of general assembly. The students then divide into nations and proceed 
according to some such plan as: 

a. Fifteen students, say, become Britons; ten, French; twelve, Ger¬ 
mans; six, Greeks; eight, Turks; ten, Chinese; eight, Japanese; five, 
Mexicans; etc.; until all the important peoples of the globe are 
represented. 

b. Each of these national groups informs itself concerning its rela¬ 
tions with the rest of the world: what it gets, what it gives, what official 
and what unofficial agreements link it to other nations. 

c. Each group has occasional meetings, the presiding officer being a 
senior who is a member of the senior oral English class. This leader 
studies and impersonates the leader of the nation in question: president, 
prime minister, etc. 

d. Each national group brings before the whole forum (class or 
school) the various international problems that come up for considera¬ 
tion. These are discussed and resolutions passed. 

e. Any given national group may present, from time to time, impor¬ 
tant facts concerning its nation, also biographical sketches of national 
leaders, folk songs and dances, current and past historical events drama¬ 
tized, etc. The forum becomes, through such presentations, a place of 
entertainment as well as instruction. 

19. Examine the advertising pages of several magazines and news¬ 
papers and make a list of the opportunities to invest in foreign bonds, 
stocks, and other property. 

20. If there are in your community men or women who have traveled 
in other countries on business or to study or on errands of helpfulness, 
try to arrange to have one or more of these speak to the civics class. 


CHAPTER XX 

AMERICA GOES INTO THE OUTSIDE WORLD OFFICIALLY 

1. The United States sends Ambassadors, Ministers, and 
Consuls to Foreign Countries. In the preceding pages we have 
enumerated ways in which the United States has gone into other 
parts of the world to work, study, rebuild, teach, and trade. 
This has all been the work of unofficial America. But the United 
States is officially present in every corner of the world. Except 
in times of crisis there is within every country a bit of the United 
States. In some cases this consists of a few rooms, sometimes a 
small house, and in a few instances a pretentious building. 
Over these buildings or at the entrance to the rooms fly the Stars 
and Stripes, and inside live and work American citizens. These 
rooms and buildings are usually rented and not owned by 
Americans, but as long as the persons who occupy them are 
Americans in whose desk or safe lies a simple but impressive 
little document bearing the great seal of the United States and 
the signature of the president of the United States, the place is 
United States territory. 

The persons who occupy these bits of United States terri¬ 
tory in foreign lands are ambassadors, ministers, consuls gen¬ 
eral, consuls, vice consuls, translators, and special agents and 
secretaries — all employed by the Department of State to repre¬ 
sent this country and to act as signal towers for the part of the 
nation that buys and sells, travels, studies, and works outside 
of the United States. Ambassadors, ministers, and envoys are 
a part of the diplomatic service, consuls general and consuls of 
the consular service. 

When the president chooses for his cabinet a secretary of 
state he is in reality choosing a foreign secretary; that is, a 

5 I S 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


5i6 



man to act for him in all matters concerning foreign countries. 
But no secretary of state chosen could attend to all the foreign 
affairs of the United States. So the president appoints a large 
group of assistant secretaries, called the "diplomatic service,” 

who are known as 


ambassadors, ministers, 
and envoys. Outside 
of his cabinet the presi¬ 
dent has no more im¬ 
portant appointments to 
make than these. Many 
people of foreign coun¬ 
tries know America 
only through these men. 
Whether it is at a din¬ 
ner, a theater, a ball 
game, or an official 
conference, their words 
and actions are being 
interpreted as indicat¬ 
ing what the United 
States thinks and feels. 

In 1920 the United 
States had in foreign 
countries forty-eight 
diplomatic and over 
three hundred consular 
representatives, besides 
more than two thou¬ 
sand assistants. Since 
the quarters in which these representatives live and work 
have been made United States territory by treaties negotiated 
through the State Department, nothing within these offices 
can be touched by the nation in which they are located. Any 
foreign nation can, however, refuse to accept a representative of 
the United States who is not pleasing to it. 


© Clinedinst 

Jacob Gould Schurman, minister to China in 
1922. Consult a "Who’s Who” to learn what 
his qualifications were 




OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 517 

2 . The United States the Protector of Latin America. The 

United States was only a young nation when it began to make 
itself felt officially in other countries. In his annual message to 
Congress in 1823 President Monroe announced to the world 
that the United States was the protector of all the little and 
big countries of the Western Hemisphere. This message, which 
became known as the Monroe Doctrine, has been more dis¬ 
cussed than any other American document except the Declara¬ 
tion of Independence and the Constitution. But like these two 
documents it has not been merely a series of sentences to be 
talked about. It has been a living document put into effect 
many times. Usually it has taken only letters from the Secre¬ 
tary of State to enforce this doctrine; at other times it has 
required the presence of battleships. 

At one time Great Britain became involved in a dispute with 
Venezuela about the boundary between Venezuela and British 
Guiana, and it seemed to the United States that Venezuela was 
not being fairly treated. For many years England refused to 
arbitrate the matter. Finally President Cleveland tried to bring 
about a settlement according to the general principles of the 
Monroe Doctrine. The result was that Great Britain agreed to 
arbitrate, and a boundary line was set that was accepted by 
both countries. 

3 . Official United States helps Trade through the State De¬ 
partment. "Freedom of the seas” has been the slogan of the 
nation, and to this end the government at Washington has been 
persistently vigilant. It was due chiefly to the efforts of our 
Department of State that Denmark in 1857 decided to abolish 
the dues that it had been levying on vessels and cargoes passing 
from the North Sea into the Baltic. Treaties with Bolivia in 
1858 and with Canada in 1871 secured free navigation of the 
Amazon, La Plata, and St. Lawrence Rivers. 

Special trade privileges are secured with foreign countries 
by means of treaties made by the president through the De¬ 
partment of State. To profit by these treaties the United States 
appoints consuls to live at the important ports and commercial 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


518 

centers of all nations with whom we have treaties. The United 
States consular service has thirteen grades, the most important 
of which are 

Consuls general. Over forty such officers are located at the foreign 
cities most important in commerce. They are appointed by the president 
with the approval of the Senate. 

Consuls and commercial agents. The latter possess all the powers and 
privileges of consuls and differ only in grade. They are commissioned 
directly by the president, but are not, like consuls and consuls general, 
approved by the Senate. 

Consular agents are appointed by the principal local officer with 
the approval of the State Department. The chief duties of con¬ 
sular officers are (1) protection of customs revenue, (2) inspec¬ 
tion of American ships, (3) attending to matters pertaining to 
American seamen, (4) enforcing immigration and quarantine 
regulations, (5) helping American citizens abroad in every pos¬ 
sible way. In addition to these duties consuls have to help en¬ 
force the Pure Food and Drugs Act. Every shipper of food to 
the United States must appear before a United States consular 
officer and make affidavit to certain facts regarding the food, 
including a statement that it is not adulterated or misbranded. 
Frequently the consular officer inserts on the invoice informa¬ 
tion about the sanitary conditions under which the food was 
produced or put up—data which will be useful to inspectors at 
American ports. 

Consuls are also supposed to prevent such misadventures 
as this: 

A New York association of merchants published cata¬ 
logues in Russian to reach the Russian market, but the 
whole edition was seized at the border because permission 
for entry had not first been obtained from the proper 
authority. 

4 . Our Official Representatives not always Praiseworthy. 

Not all our representatives in foreign countries have been a 
credit to the government. One year when the State Department 
sent an official to inspect our consular posts in the Orient, he 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 519 

found much that was unsatisfactory. In regard to one official 
he made this report: 

His name throughout southern China reeks of sharp 
practice and unsavory dealings. We, as Americans, have 
frequently felt very much embarrassed to be obliged to 
listen to the comment concerning him by all the people who 
have met him or known of him around the hotels and boats 
in which we traveled. The remark is frequently made that 
if you want any kind of shady deal put through just 
tip-. 

5 . Official United States goes Abroad with Money. Official 
United States goes abroad also by means of loans, arranged by 
the Department of State, voted by Congress, and issued by the 
Treasury Department. The government war and emergency 
loans to foreign countries in the years 1914 to 1921 were 


Great Britain 

$4,100,000,000 

Greece 

$15,000,000 

France 

3,300,000,000 

Esthonia . 

13,000,000 

Italy 

1,600,000,000 

Cuba . . 

9,000,000 

Belgium . 

375,000,000 

Armenia . 

11,000,000 

Russia 

190,000,000 

Finland . 

8,200,000 

Poland 

135,000,000 

Latvia . . . 

5,100,000 

Czechoslovakia . 

91,000,000 

Lithuania . . 

4,900,000 

Serbia 

51,000,000 

Hungary . . 

1,600,000 

Roumania 

36,000,000 

Liberia 

26,000 

Austria . 

24,000,000 




Official America also goes abroad with gifts of money. 
By the act of Congress in 1919, known as "an act for the relief 
of such population in Europe and countries contiguous thereto, 
outside of Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey as may be determined upon by the President as neces¬ 
sary,” $100,000,000 was appropriated and used by officials 
called the American Relief Administration. Later $20,000,000 
was again voted by Congress to help send American grain to 
the Volga. As late as 1923 government officials were spending 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, appropriated by Congress, to 
relieve suffering in different parts of Europe. 







520 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


6. Official United States goes Abroad with its Navy. Our 

navy in the past has gone into many parts of the world and is 
still going—not only on those rare occasions when the United 
States is at war with another nation but year in and year out 
in ordinary times of peace. The first foreign task of the navy 
was that of disposing of the Barbary pirates. In an old 
Boston newspaper appears an item about an American sailor 
named Carver, captured by these pirates, whose friends had 
been collecting funds for nine years with which to pay the 
ransom demanded by Barbary. It seems strange to think that 
in proud cities like Salem and Boston sailors once went from 
house to house begging money with which to ransom shipmates 
held prisoners in Barbary. Stranger still it seems to read that 
our government at one time actually sent messengers to the 
Dey of Algiers with money—over a million dollars altogether— 
"and a fine new frigate” as a "bribe.” Not until 1815 was the 
United States able to send a large enough naval force into the 
Mediterranean to end once and forever all piracy on that sea. 

During the War of 1812 with England our naval vessels made 
daring cruises to distant parts of the world. Perhaps the naval 
expedition of this war that left the deepest impression on a 
distant part of the world was that of Commodore David Porter, 
who rounded Cape Horn, attacked the British whaling fleet off 
the western coast of South America, and then put into the 
Marquesas Islands for repairs. Porter not only made use of 
the islands as a repair shop but "annexed” them to the United 
States, issuing a proclamation to this effect and promising the 
natives that they would soon hear from his government. But 
the government at Washington took no notice of these eleven 
South Sea islands, and in 1842 they were annexed by France. 

. It was a naval officer who in 1840 made the first move toward 
securing the "open door” in China. Commodore Kearny of the 
Constitution was on duty in Chinese waters at the close of 
the Opium War between China and England, and by winning 
the good will of the Chinese authorities secured from them a 
promise that whatever commercial privileges were granted to 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 521 

Great Britain would also be given to the United States. Shortly 
after this five Chinese ports were opened to foreign trade. 

With the exception of the winning of the confidence of the 
great Chinese Empire, the most important peace-time accom¬ 
plishment of the navy in a foreign country was opening Japan 



Keystone View Co. 

Americans may take pride in both their army and their navy. Our armies and 
navies are what the people make them 


to trade. For many years American sailors who were wrecked 
in northern Pacific waters along the Japanese coast had been 
badly treated by the natives. Finally Commodore Perry was 
sent by the President on the twofold mission of securing humane 
treatment for American sailors and opening Japanese ports to 
American vessels. No nation need open its ports to foreign 
vessels unless it wishes to, but all the important countries of the 
world which bordered on the sea had already made treaties 
with the United States by the terms of which American vessels 







522 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


could use their ports, and their vessels could use our ports. 
Japan alone had refused to have dealings with other nations. 

When Commodore Perry’s gunboat anchored in one of 
Japan’s harbors the Japanese at first tried to frighten him away. 
When this failed they sent petty officials to talk with him. But 
Perry refused to receive officially anyone but a representative 
of the emperor. Finally amid a thunderous salute from the 
ship’s guns and with a formidable guard, he landed, presented 
the President’s letter in a gold box, and took his departure. He 
returned in the spring to find the Japanese government ready to 
grant the United States all that was asked. An Englishman 
called Perry’s achievement "one of the great historical events 
of the last century.” 

Our marines (the soldiers of the navy) have seen service 
in Egypt, Algiers, Tripoli, Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, Cuba, 
Panama, Nicaragua, Santo Domingo, the islands of Formosa, 
Sumatra, France, Italy, Siberia. When in 1916 a political revo¬ 
lution threatened the peace of Santo Domingo and endangered 
the lives of Americans, our gunboats were ordered to the scene, 
marines were landed, and a rear admiral was made military 
governor. Under this governor a stable and efficient form of 
government was set up. With the help of five thousand marines 
and a staff of doctors, economists, bankers, accountants, and 
contractors, the affairs of the island were so administered that 
by 1921 there was a surplus of $3,200,000 in the treasury, school 
attendance had been increased from eighteen thousand to a 
hundred and twenty thousand, rural schoolhouses from thirty 
to six hundred and forty-seven, sanitary hospitals from none 
to five. 

7. Our Navy helps make Foreign Trade Possible. Without 
our navy our foreign trade could not be carried on with 
assurance even in these days of comparative freedom of the 
seas. In 1893, when an insurrection occurred in Brazil, the 
Detroit , under Rear Admiral Benham, was ordered to Rio de 
Janeiro, where our merchant vessels were lying at anchor unable 
to discharge their cargoes or to get fresh supplies of food and 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 523 

water. Benham ordered the vessels to proceed to the dock 
while he turned his gunboat between the Brazilian guns and the 
unarmed merchantmen. The result was that the cargoes were 
discharged, fresh supplies obtained, and the American vessels 
put to sea again. There is no year when the presence of one 



© Keystone View Co. 

This picture shows one of our river ports that has quick access to the sea. It 
is the protection given by the navy that makes our busy coast trade and 
foreign commerce profitable 


of our naval vessels in foreign waters is not of benefit to our 
commerce. In 1921 President Harding ordered two men of war 
to Tampico, Mexico, to protect the lives and property of Amer¬ 
icans. Tampico was the port from which Americans who oper¬ 
ated oil wells and refineries exported their products. Because 
of a new export tax levied by the Mexican government, the oil 
refineries found it necessary to close down their plants. The 
Mexican laborers, not understanding the cause of the closing, 
began to riot and threatened the destruction of the valuable 
American-owned property. Largely because of the presence 
of the war vessels nothing disastrous happened. 




524 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


In case of need our navy in foreign ports may also act in 
a diplomatic or consular capacity. In the absence of a diplo¬ 
matic or consular officer of the United States at a foreign port 
the commander in chief of a naval force has authority: " (i) to 
exercise the powers of a consul in relation to mariners of the 
United States, (2) to communicate or remonstrate with foreign 
civil authorities as may be necessary, (3) to urge upon citizens 
of the United States the necessity of abstaining from participa¬ 
tion in political controversies.” 

8. How a Naval Officer summarizes the Work of the Navy. 
The kinds of errands on which our navy goes to foreign shores 
in times of peace are well summarized in the following state¬ 
ment made by Commander W. F. Halsey of the office of naval 
intelligence in January, 1922: 

The navy is broadly divided into three fleets: Atlantic, 
Pacific, and Asiatic. . . . 

In addition to the three fleets there are various subdivi¬ 
sions. In Europe we have one battleship, eight destroyers, 
and one yacht in addition to a few submarine chasers and 
small vessels. These vessels are primarily concentrated 
at present in the vicinity of Constantinople and the Black 
Sea, engaged in protecting American interests, evacuating 
and caring for refugees, overseeing and protecting Ameri¬ 
can relief supplies, and in general fulfilling humanitarian 
duties. There are one or two of these destroyers in the 
Baltic and along the coast of Russia doing the same work. 
They will be actively engaged in the supervision of the 
distribution of supplies for the Russian relief. 

We have a Special Service Squadron consisting of about 
seven vessels, which are small cruisers, having their head¬ 
quarters at Balboa, Canal Zone. These vessels are used 
for service on both coasts of North and South America, 
primarily in the tropical countries. Their primary object 
is to show the flag, for protection of American interests, 
and to extend international courtesies to the various coun¬ 
tries. They are available, and are being continually dis¬ 
patched to ports in Central America when revolutions or 


J 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 525 

disturbances take place. In addition, they have been used 
to attend various national celebrations when our govern¬ 
ment has been invited to send representatives. They have 
cruised from Punta Arenas, Chile, in the south to both 
coasts of the United States in the north. 

In the Asiatic the ships are widely distributed, head¬ 
quarters being at Manila. They cruise throughout the 
Philippine Islands, Siberia, Japan, China, and the Dutch 
East Indies. They are used for protecting the interests of 
the United States and inspecting outlying stations. 

We have a Yangtze Patrol Squadron consisting of a 
number of patrol vessels stationed on the Yangtze River. 
These vessels are continuously cruising up and down this 
river, protecting our Nationals, principally merchants, 
missionaries, and representatives of large corporations. 

The conditions along the Yangtze River are chaotic owing 
to the general disruption of the Chinese government, and 
these vessels are doing splendid work. They are working 
in conjunction with the English, French, and Japanese 
ships engaged in the same tasks, and protection is in reality 
afforded to all foreigners. . . . 

During one of the winter cruises of our fleet some of the boats 
put into Lima, Peru, where the commanding officer was received 
by the Peruvian president, who paid this tribute to the navy and 
to America: "In all our dealings with other nations we have 
found the United States the only one whose actions have not 
been dictated by selfish interests.” 

9. Official United States goes Abroad with its Army. Be¬ 
cause the United States is separated from most of the outside 
world by either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, the work of 
protecting Americans abroad and helping the peoples of other 
countries has been done chiefly by the navy. But several times 
the United States has sent its army into other countries. 
Transported by the navy, American soldiers went to Cuba dur¬ 
ing the Spanish-American War, and at the close of the war into 
the Philippines to put down the rebellion. During the World 
War the greatest army that any nation has ever sent across 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



526 

the seas was sent by America to Europe. Several times also 
we have had to send troops into Mexico. Sending an army into 
another country usually requires a declaration of war by Con¬ 
gress and the appropriation of the money necessary to pay extra 
expenses. The regular annual appropriation for the War De¬ 
partment is never sufficient for anything but regular peace-time 


© George R. King 

America has gone into distant parts of the world to stay—in Alaska, Hawaii, 
and many islands. In various ways the government helps Alaskan natives to 
earn a living and get an education 

tasks of patrolling the Mexican border, holding a garrison in 
the Philippine Islands, maintaining our forts, dredging our 
harbors. Once war has been declared by Congress, what the 
army shall do is decided by the president, assisted by the Secre¬ 
tary of War and other advisers. It is the official acts of the 
army, as determined by the president through the War Depart¬ 
ment, that speak for America in foreign countries. Europe has 
never seen cleaner, finer fighting, more consideration for women 
and children, more resourcefulness in the face of difficulties, 
than that shown by the American army in 1917 and 1918. 



OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 527 

10 . Official United States is linked up with the Outside 
World by Treaties. Every war with another country means a 
treaty at its close. Preceding the treaty the fighting ceases, and 
each nation appoints special peace officials to draw up an agree¬ 
ment. These are then submitted to the government of each 
nation for final approval. The president submits the treaty to 
the Senate. If two thirds of the Senate votes its approval, the 
president signs it, thus making it a law of the nation. The re¬ 
fusal of the Senate to approve the Versailles Treaty at the end 
of the World War is one of the most conspicuous events of our 
history. 

Treaties, as we have already pointed out, are international 
laws. While a treaty is a necessary sequel to war between 
nations, most of the treaties that we have made with other 
countries have to do with trade, travel, and industry. These 
international laws, like the laws passed by Congress and the 
state legislatures, require many officials to carry them out— 
ambassadors, consuls, customs officials, naval commanders; at 
times they also require the assistance of special police officers 
and courts. Our international police officers are our navy and 
our army. International courts are (1) arbitration commis¬ 
sions appointed from time to time to settle special disputes; 

(2) the International Court at The Hague,which is a permanent 
court to which any nation may refer any dispute at any time; 

(3) the League of Nations, which is a league of most of the 
nations of the world, to which any member nation can refer 
its disputes. 

When each nation is anxious to have treaties upheld in a 
legal manner, every dispute can be settled in one of these 
ways. But many disputes go unsettled, many breakers of 
treaties go unpunished, therefore many people believe that 
there should be some kind of international court to which na¬ 
tions should be compelled to refer all international difficulties 
that cannot be disposed of by diplomatic officers. Whether the 
International Court at The Hague or the League of Nations at 
Geneva can become such a court we do not yet know. This is 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



528 

another of the many problems that may have to wait for the 
pupils now in school to work out in future years. 

11 . How Government aids Americans who go into Foreign 
Countries. Our government not only goes into the outside 
world with ambassadors, consuls, and other official messengers, 


(Q) H. C. Tibbetts 

It is government which builds lighthouses, places buoys, and maintains a 
coast patrol to protect vessels from dangerous shoals and rocky shores 

but it makes it convenient and safe for both officials and private 
citizens to go into foreign countries whenever they wish. This 
is accomplished through 

1. The Department of Commerce, which, through its Steamship- 
Inspection Service, sees to it that the ships are seaworthy and safe; 
through its Coast and Geodetic Survey helps to make accurate charts 
of the coast; through its Lighthouse Board erects lighthouses or signal 
lights on dangerous rocks, stations lightships where lighthouses could 
not be built, and marks channels and obstructions with buoys; through 
its Radio Service division requires the installation and proper care of 
a wireless outfit in all ocean-going vessels carrying passengers, and 
from its signal stations on the shore repeats to Coast Guard vessels 
calls for assistance. 




OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 529 

2. The Treasury Department, which, through its Coast Guard, 
furnishes a constant patrol of steamship lanes to warn of derelicts, ice¬ 
bergs, and other dangers, and through its Customs Service and Public 
Health Service demands and requires sanitation and freedom from 
disease on shipboard. 

3. The Navy Department, which, through its Hydrographic Office, 
prepares charts of all the seas and issues warning of special dangers to 
all shipping companies and vessels, and through its Radio Compass 
stations gives bearings to lost vessels. 

4. The War Department, which furnishes engineers for the building 
of lighthouses etc. 

5. The Department of Agriculture, which issues to steamships and 
lighthouses wireless daily reports as to fog, winds, and storms. 

6. The Post Office Department, which, through treaties made with 
foreign countries, has secured adequate foreign mail service. 

7. The State Department, which issues passports to travelers, assigns 
consuls to the principal foreign cities, makes treaties securing various 
privileges for Americans traveling in or doing business with foreign 
countries. 

12 . America has gone into the Outside World to Stay. Al¬ 
though the American people have been going into all parts of 
the world to buy and to sell from the earliest colonial days, 
it was not until 1867 that as a nation we went into the outside 
world to buy peninsulas and islands. In that year we bought the 
peninsula of Alaska, and since that time we have either pur¬ 
chased or annexed about four thousand islands, some mere rocks, 
others tiny continents. We can take space here to mention only 
the most important of our possessions. 

1. Alaska is a large-sized piece of the "American roof” which was 
purchased from Russia for $7,250,000. The easternmost point of Alaska 
is only fifty miles distant from Siberia, and when a solid field of ice forms 
in the Bering Strait, North America and Asia become one—as the 
geologists tell us they were ages ago. 

2. The Hawaiian Islands , consisting of twelve islands, eight of which 
are inhabited, were the next large piece of the outside world that we 
acquired. For many years the large number of American residents in 
these islands had been desirous of having them annexed to the United 
States. Finally, in 1898, three months after the beginning of the Spanish- 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


530 

American War, a treaty of annexation was signed in Washington by 
representatives of the Hawaiian government and the United States. 

3. In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, Spain by treaty 
agreed to sell us the Philippines , consisting of 3141 islands. We paid for 
them $20,000,000 and the cost of transporting the Spanish soldiers back 
to Spain. 

4. Porto Rico and several small adjoining islands, like the Philippines, 
came into the possession of the United States in 1898 as a result of the 
Spanish-American War. 

5. The Panama Canal Zone is a strip of land in Central America ten 
miles wide, extending from ocean to ocean, which, with a number of 
small islands, was "leased’’ by Panama to the United States by treaty 
in 1904 for a cash payment of $10,000,000 and an annual rental of 
$250,000, beginning in 1913. By the terms of the lease the United States 
has as complete possession as if it owned the land outright. 

Besides these more important areas, the United States owns 
many other islands, some so tiny that from an airplane they 
seem hardly more than freckles on the face of the ocean. 

1. Layson Island is a small island two days’ journey west of Honolulu. 
The albatross makes this a nesting place, and our government gives it the 
protection of the navy. 

2. Midway between the United States and Japan are two islands 
called the Midways , one of which is the home of between twenty and 
thirty Americans who are employees of a cable company. 

3. Guam is one of a group of islands in the Pacific called the Ladrones, 
formerly owned by Spain, but ceded to us after the Spanish-American 
War. The island is now the relay station for four lines of cableways 
and is also important to the United States for its good harbor. 

4. The large group of Samoan Islands , only part of which belong to 
the United States, lie in the Pacific Ocean. Of these the most important 
is Tutuila, which has one of the best harbors in the Pacific — Pago Pago, 
which is valuable to us as a coaling station. 

5. In 1917 the United States bought from Denmark for $25,000,000 
a group of islands known as the Virgin Islands, which lie about fifty 
miles east of Porto Rico. Thus far the American people have done 
practically nothing to develop them. 

6. Some of the stray islands owned by the United States in the Pacific 
are the Marcus and Wake Islands , and to the south of these the How¬ 
land and Baker Islands. 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 531 

Americans should learn as much as possible about our pos¬ 
sessions. The following facts will serve only as a brief outline 
to use in assembling additional information: 

1. All these parts of the outside world have been secured through 
treaties with other countries, which are much like bills of sale. They 
state the terms of sale or of annexation, how and when the owner is 
to turn over the property to the United States, etc. 

2. Every possession of the United States, whether a tiny rocky island 
or a whole archipelago, is at first placed under naval supervision. Naval 
men not only protect the inhabitants but take the first steps in cleaning 
things up, starting schools, and regulating work life. For large posses¬ 
sions Congress later organizes regular civil government, but in the case 
of small islands year after year the navy acts as protector, cleaner-up, 
school supervisor, and performs all the other acts of government. For 
each possession a code of laws, which corresponds somewhat to a state 
constitution, is eventually drawn up by Congress. 

3. Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, the Philippines, and Porto Rico have 
a governor appointed by the president. The people elect their repre¬ 
sentative to Washington and the members of their own legislature (which 
consists of two houses). The legislature of these four territories has 
power to make specified kinds of laws to meet certain needs and condi¬ 
tions. The Panama Canal Zone is under the supervision of a governor 
who is a naval officer appointed by the president, and is managed much 
as are our small island possessions. 

4. We have said in earlier chapters that our government only in¬ 
directly makes work for its people. When, however, the United States 
has gone into distant parts of the world where it finds people who do 
not understand how to develop work life, then it lends a hand. Before 
the United States purchased Alaska, the native Eskimo tribes had de¬ 
pended chiefly on hunting and fishing, but through the efforts of the 
United States large numbers of reindeer were imported from Siberia 
and distributed throughout the most desolate Eskimo sections. Now the 
reindeer ranches are the chief sources of livelihood of many Eskimo 
settlements, and one of the strange duties of the superintendents of 
schools, as they make their long, dangerous trips through their district, 
is to inspect the reindeer herds and report to Washington on their 
condition. 

Several times the United States government has moved whole villages 
to locations where the people could find more opportunities for work. 
At one time a new settlement called Noorvik was established by moving 


532 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


the village of Deering from the bleak seacoast to a fertile tract on the 
Kobuk River, where there were large supplies of timber, fish and game, 
and abundant grazing land for reindeer herds. Here, with their increased 
opportunities for work and under the leadership of teachers trained in 
the United States, the Eskimos in two years’ time built up a community 
of streets, single-family houses, gardens, a sawmill, an electric plant, and 
a mercantile company. In many other ways the United States has 
helped develop the work life of Alaska. It has built 479 miles of rail¬ 
road, 980 miles of wagon roads, 2991 miles of trails, and 629 miles of 
winter sled roads. 

In the Philippine Islands the United States has built more than 3000 
miles of macadamized roads and 7500 bridges and culverts, by means of 
which the Filipinos can more easily distribute their products throughout 
the islands. At a cost of $5,000,000 it has made the port of Manila 
the best in the East, thereby giving the people invaluable help in 
marketing their products in other countries. In one year $7,500,000 
worth of embroidery was exported from the Philippines to the United 
States alone. By teaching scientific agriculture, weaving, and basketry 
in the public schools the United States has increased the products of 
the islands. 

5. A permanent work life requires from the government something be¬ 
sides schools, good roads, bridges, and ports. Security of private owner¬ 
ship is absolutely essential. To decide who are the rightful owners of 
land has been a slow, difficult process, for before the government can 
give or approve title to land it must first be surveyed, its record looked 
up, and a competent court pass upon its validity. This is work that our 
government has undertaken in its possessions. The knowledge that it 
is the intention of the United States to make the humblest native as 
secure in the possession of the farm for which he has paid as the richest 
American is helping transform the Filipino farmer into a hard-working 
citizen. 

6. As we have shown in the earlier chapters of this book, what bene¬ 
fits work life also benefits home life. But the United States government 
has also given special attention to the home life of its possessions. In 
every school the simple elements of cleanliness and domestic science 
are taught. To make home life permanent, laws have been passed 
relating to marriage and the support of children. The government has 
also helped make permanent homes possible by making home owner¬ 
ship secure. 


OFFICIAL AMERICA IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD 533 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read this chapter as a continuation of Chapter XIX. Compare the 
parts that unofficial and official America play in the outside world. 

2 . Turn to the World Almanac and find out what kind of official 
representatives we send to each country. A young man can secure a 
position with our ministers and consuls by taking the civil-service 
examination for translators, stenographers, interpreters, and general 
clerks. Get from the civil-service commission at Washington informa¬ 
tion about these positions. To fit yourself for any one of these, what 
studies would you have to take in high school and college? 

3 . The diplomatic service has to do with the political affairs, the con¬ 
sular service with commercial affairs. What are political affairs ? Turn 
to your clippings assembled in earlier chapters to see if any items relate 
to ministers or consuls. If not, again read the papers for timely items. 
Find out who are our chief representatives to England, France, Ger¬ 
many, Italy, Russia, China, Japan. What do you know about the quali¬ 
fications of these men for their important work? Make a list of the 
educational equipment that our minister to Italy, for instance, should 
have as to language, history, economics, art, and the like. Why are the 
positions as minister to Japan and China difficult to fill ? 

4 . Assume that in the coming summer you can take a trip abroad. 
Decide on a two months’ tour, planning your route carefully. Show, 
step by step, how official America makes such a trip safe. 

5 . Find out at what points United States consuls are stationed in the 
countries you will visit. 

6. If in your school or public library there is a biography of any of 
our former ministers and ambassadors, make from this an outline of 
the facts connected with his ambassadorship. Note especially what 
kind of preparation he had for this work. Some member of the class 
should be assigned to read the life of Townsend Harris, our first minis¬ 
ter to Japan, and of John Hay, one of our foremost American statesmen. 

7 . Turn to your textbook of history and re-read the account of 
America’s part in the World War. Be prepared to discuss the im¬ 
portance of this in class. If the teacher approves, select four students 
to debate on the question, Resolved , That America’s part in the World 
War makes national isolation impossible. 

8. Divide the class into groups, each group studying and reporting on 
one of our possessions, the class to take notes on the report. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 

1 . Why we strive for the Beautiful. Many times during the 
study of the chapters of this book and of the other textbooks 
required by your curriculum you will be impressed with the fact 
that almost the whole energy of the nation is turned toward 
getting better homes, better working conditions, more lesiure, 
more means of enjoying leisure. But why all this effort for 
more health and more leisure? Why should we want more 
leisure? If, as we have tried to show, work is good, why bother 
to make leisure for the millions of the nation’s people? Why 
try so hard to give the people beautiful things? We fill our 
textbooks with ways and means of accomplishing these things, 
but we do not tell why. It is difficult to tell the reason, for 
words are too clumsy to express the finer things, but in the 
following pages we have tried to suggest answers to these 
questions. 

2 . There are Two Sides to Every Person. In one of the big 
New York City hotels on Christmas Eve the orchestra in the 
main dining-room played Christmas music during the supper 
hour. Soft carpets, high pillars draped in green, prism-covered 
chandeliers that sparkled like diamonds, and in the center a 
cedar tree gay with red and blue lights and a thousand toys— 
everything was as beautiful as skill and taste could make it. 
But the elegance of the setting, the attractiveness of the tables, 
the fragrance of the cedar, seemed suddenly plain and unimpor¬ 
tant when the orchestra, hidden from sight by a mass of green 
boughs, began to play "Holy Night.” No one ate; no one 
talked. Like a mother murmuring a lullaby to her sleeping 
child, the first violin against the background of many other 
instruments told the story that men and women are always 

534 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 535 



hungry to hear. Every quiver of the music was as beautiful as 
a dream. The listeners not only heard beauty, they saw it 
and felt it. Perhaps it was a soft twilight, a home scene, a 
beautiful face, a mountain lake by moonlight, the depth of a 
great forest, that the music suggested. Whatever it was, it was 
something beautiful, 
and it filled their 
minds and hearts. 

There are two sides 
to every person—one 
is the side that thinks 
of the body and the 
bread-and-butter part 
of living. This is the 
side that works to the 
point of weariness to 
buy food and clothes 
and to pay rent. The 
right kind of person 
enjoys this part of 
himself greatly. The 
other side of himself 
he does not understand 
so well. It is the side 
that likes the quiet of 
the woods in summer, 
a starlit night in win¬ 
ter, the essays of Stevenson, the poems of Burns, the choir boys 
at church, the singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner.” It is this 
side of people that builds great churches, cultivates rare orchids, 
sacrifices to feed the starving people of a far-off country, gives 
up weeks of comfort to bring a moment’s happiness to a friend. 

3 . Every Person is hungry for Beautiful Things. Some peo¬ 
ple know that they are hungry for these things, while others long 
for them, but do not know it. The lawyer who hired the most 
inaccessible office in a ten-story building because it faced the 


Men have not yet succeeded in making beautiful 
things that can surpass nature 




536 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


western sky knew that sunsets were worth more to him than a 
room which clients could find more easily. But the boy from 
a threadbare home who applied for employment in a florist’s 
shop did not know that the reason he was willing to accept this 
fifteen-dollar-a-week place, when he might have been earning 
twenty-five dollars in a factory, was that he had been starved 
for beautiful things. 

On Armistice Day, 1918, the narrow streets and old burying- 
ground near Paul Revere’s church in Boston were filled with 
people who came to hear the trumpeters play patriotic airs 
from the balcony of the steeple. In spite of the narrowness 
of the streets, the dreariness of the weather, and the sordidness 
of the near-by tenements, the thousands had only a sense of 
beauty—the simple beauty of the church, the picturesqueness 
of the four soldiers with their graceful trumpets, the clear, 
stirring tones of the music. The little church stood for many 
beautiful things; the soldiers and their music stood for all the 
beauty that lies in a great nation. It was the feelings that the 
church, the soldiers, and the music brought into men’s hearts 
that made the scene a beautiful one. 

4 . What Beauty Is. Beauty is sometimes what we hear, 
sometimes what we see, what we feel with our hands or feel 
with our hearts. The hush that comes over a great audience 
after a benediction, the silence in a deep forest at twilight, give 
the same impression of beauty that a beautiful scene does. 
Many a traveler through the Grand Canon will never forget 
certain rare moments of quietness, when at the rim of a preci¬ 
pice he could hear the "whir of a bird’s wings in the abyss.” 

No one can give a definition of beauty that will satisfy 
another. A beautiful thing may be a poem, a song, a tree, a sunset, 
a child, a building, a vase, a voice, a church steeple, a kind deed. 
When a group of college students who had come from different 
parts of the country were one night comparing experiences, each 
told of the most beautiful sight he had seen. These are some of 
the things that were enumerated: the fireflies over Fountain 
Lake Meadow in Wisconsin on a sultry July evening; Michi- 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 537 

gan Avenue in Chicago by electric light on a foggy evening; 
New York Harbor from Staten Island Ferry in the early eve¬ 
ning ; a sunrise through the pine trees of Smoky Mountain; the 
marsh grass in a little tide river in Connecticut; Mt. Shasta by 
moonlight; a graduation ball at West Point. One of the stu¬ 
dents had been born in Russia, and when his turn came, he said: 

I was traveling with my father toward Kiev. It was late 
in the evening, and I was tired and homesick, when sud¬ 
denly as the train curved around a bend in the river 
Dnieper, I saw in the dark sky a huge cross of luminous 
gold. It glowed and quivered like a thing of life. This 
cross was borne by the statue of Vladimir, which stands on 
a high hill overlooking the river. Sometimes even now 
when I look into the night sky, for a second I seem to see 
it still glowing and quivering high above me. 

Every person desires two things: to bring something beau¬ 
tiful into his own life and to give something beautiful to others. 
No person’s life is complete without both getting and giving. 
It is much easier to get than to give, however, because each 
person has all the centuries that are past to draw from. Every 
nation and period of history has produced something beautiful 
to look at, read, or listen to. As we have explained in another 
chapter, the Old World beauty has overflowed into the United 
States, until today we have some of it in every town and city 
of the nation. 

5 . Getting Something Beautiful in One's Life. The ways in 
which different people bring beauty into their own busy lives 
are almost as numerous as the people themselves, and are proof 
that no person need have a life that is wholly drab. When John 
Burroughs was earning his living in the currency bureau at 
Washington, at work that was most distasteful to him, he spent 
his evenings writing the essays that made up his first nature 
book; he balanced the figures side of the day with an out-of- 
doors side. It was not merely to earn money for food and 
medicine for his wife that the famous French painter Millet 


538 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 



The church is the community’s symbol of service. Whatever the denomination, 
it always stands for the spirit of helpfulness 

hastened from the long day’s toil as a railway porter to an eve¬ 
ning in his rude studio, where he worked feverishly over the 
canvas that was to add immeasurably to the world’s pleasure— 
the "Angelus”; it was to get for himself some of the beauty 






THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 539 

he craved that he never left his canvas until the work was com¬ 
pleted. Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, the world’s foremost biolo¬ 
gist, spent his spare hours in painting in water colors. When he 
returned from a four months’ trip to India he brought back 
more than two hundred colored sketches which he had made as 
a matter of recreation. 

Even the men piling up fortunes have not been satisfied 
with mere money success. They have tried, some in one way, 
some in another, to get a little time for beautiful things. Until 
John Burroughs died in 1920, hardly a year passed that 
Thomas A. Edison and several other business men did not go 
with him into the great woods for a few weeks, where they 
drank in the wonders of "wood smoke at twilight,” and listened 
to the simple talk of one of America’s greatest lovers of nature. 
J. Pierpont Morgan, the financier, gathered beautiful pictures 
and other works of art. Andrew Carnegie planned beautiful 
libraries. Lord Leverhulme, one of England’s most successful 
manufacturers, planned a whole town of workers’ houses, with 
a "few sprays of ivy and a greensward in front of each one.” 
Henry Watterson, the well-known editor of Louisville, Ken¬ 
tucky, kept a piano in his office and turned to it when tired 
or restless. 

A busy writer who had no money to buy beautiful pic¬ 
tures for his home and no time to travel to the beautiful spots 
moved his home to a little shack on a lake many miles from 
the conveniences of town life. "It is something to be dreamed 
of,” he wrote a friend, "when the lake is still. There is no road; 
a hayfield comes down to the very edge of the bluff, and the 
shore fifty feet below is narrow and rocky. ... I come in 
the evenings and smoke as the sun goes down. Sometimes the 
beauty of it is all that I can bear.” One farmer each year takes 
time to plant roses as well as corn, and saves out of his corn 
crop a store equal to five bushels a day, which he feeds to the 
wild geese to attract them to his farm. Many a market gardener 
in California plants between his rows of vegetables flowers that 
make his acres a bower of beauty. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


540 

A factory worker bought a second-hand telescope, which he 
mounted in his attic. He studied books on lenses, textbooks 
of astronomy, and gradually came to live in a new world. His 
only unhappy days were those when the sky was hidden by 
clouds. It was a friend of Roosevelt, Jacob Riis, the newspaper 



The powerful modern telescopes with which astronomers study the heavens 
reveal a kind of beauty that ordinary persons never dream of. (Photograph 
taken at Mt. Wilson Observatory) 


writer and social reformer, who one day was invited to visit a 
college observatory to see the planet Saturn through a powerful 
telescope, and in a few seconds got a vision of the wonder and 
beauty of the universe that the factory worker was discovering 
bit by bit. Riis said: 

I gazed and gazed ; between the star and its ring I caught 
the infinite depth of black space beyond. I seemed to see 
almost the whirl, the motion; to hear the moving stars 
sing together—and then like a flash it was gone. . . . 

The clockwork that makes the dome keep up with the 




THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 541 


motion of the stars ... of our world rather . . . had run 
down, and as Saturn passed out of my sight, as I thought, 
it was the earth instead that I literally saw move. 

There are some people who cannot grow flowers or even 
buy flowers, who cannot see the stars either with or without a 
telescope—they are the 
old, the crippled, the 
blind. But if all other 
sources fail; if there is 
no one even to read to 
them a beautiful poem 
or tell them a beautiful 
story, there is still one 
never-failing means of 
getting the rarest kind of 
beauty—the daydreams. 

No human being is with¬ 
out some imagination, 
and in imagination any¬ 
one can see beautiful 
things, hear beautiful 
sounds, and do noble 
deeds. Dreaming can 
never take the place of 
doing, but dreaming is a 
real part of our living. 

6. Adding Something Beautiful to the World. It is almost 
as simple a matter to add something beautiful to the world as 
to get something beautiful from it. Often the thing which adds 
a touch of beauty to one’s own life also gives beauty to others. 
John Burroughs’s boyhood hours of wandering through the 
woods and fields, and the long evenings of later years spent in 
writing about what he saw, gave courage and pleasure to many 
persons besides himself. The joy that came to Millet as he 
painted his "Angelus” was only a small part of the pleasure and 
comfort that the picture has given. It now belongs to all the 



America excels in the stained-glass window 
art. The artist is making the drawing for a 
church window 








COMMUNITY CIVICS 



world, and the world is a little happier and a little less sordid 
because of it. The celebrated botanist who for his own pleasure 
explored the wild and mountainous regions lying on the borders 
of Tibet, to get rare specimens of alpine flowers, made the gar¬ 
dens in every country richer because of his searches. 

Beauty multiplies as 
heroism does. There 
could never be one hero 
in a town or in a nation. 
One hero makes many 
heroes. One beautiful 
thing makes many 
beautiful things. That 
is why the ugliest town 
or the dreariest home 
is never hopeless. Just 
so long as there is one 
beautiful garden, one 
person working to make 
his own home or his 
own town more attrac¬ 
tive, beauty is certain 
to spread. Perhaps the 
t, - I.-,-, • t) 4.4. 17 , hundreds who pass the 

Bronze figures made by Bessie Potter Vonnoh . ^ 

to suggest the grace and beauty of children beautiful garden do not 

hurry home to plant 
one for themselves. But a picture has been left in the memory, 
and some day, when the worries are less and there is more time 
to plan, they will find a way to add a garden or some other 
beautiful thing to their lives. 

7 . Beauty makes Beauty. Lincoln expressed the beautiful 
side of himself in his work and in his words. His Gettysburg 
Address will always be read for its beauty of strength and sim¬ 
plicity. His face will always be studied for the sweetness of his 
smile and the kindliness of his eyes. Men’s voices change and 
their faces soften when they speak of him. Something of the 



THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 543 

beauty that they find in him takes possession of them. It is 
always so. Men try to express the beauty that they see or feel 
by creating something beautiful. No one could adequately 
express appreciation of Lincoln, but poets, painters, essayists, 
playwrights, have tried. Saint Gaudens will long be remem¬ 
bered for the simple Lincoln statue in Chicago. One of Walt 
Whitman’s best poems is an impulsive appreciation of Lin¬ 
coln, and one of the most successful dramas that has been 
acted in recent years is a drama of Lincoln’s life. No painter, 
musician, poet, or essayist that America has yet produced has 
added to the world so much of the truest kind of beauty as 
Lincoln. Overlooking the Potomac River, in Washington and 
within sight of the Capitol, the people of the United States have 
built a Lincoln Memorial—a temple of white marble, strong 
and simple. A series of granite steps and terraces leads to the 
porticoes. Exquisite bronze work, paneled paintings, cleverly 
arranged lights, and a seated statue of Lincoln help to make the 
memorial a many-sided expression of the nation’s love. 

Tennyson’s greatest poem, "In Memoriam,”—in itself a 
thing of rare beauty,—was his heartbroken effort to tell the 
world of the beauty of his friend who had died. When Joyce 
Kilmer wrote 

I think that I shall never see 
A poem lovely as a tree. . . . 

A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; . . . 

Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree, 

he was expressing in a beautiful form his sense of the rare 
beauty of a tree. When Louis Potter, the sculptor, molded out 
of clay the figures of a father, mother, and grandfather bearing 
heavy burdens, and a child from whose frail, bent shoulders had 
been lifted a great weight, he was telling in a beautiful way 
(the way of the sculptor) of one of the fine things of modern 
life—giving more joy and freedom to children. 


544 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


By no means are all the distributors of beauty painters, 
sculptors, poets, and famous statesmen. The workman whose 
daily task was to install electric-light fixtures understood the 
secret of beautifying. He had been detailed one day to install 
fixtures in a hall where a bazaar was to be held. By taking 
infinite pains he made the big room look as if it were full of 
sunlight, and when someone praised him he said: " Those that 
come will have a better time because of it. It is spring sunlight, 
and I tell you spring sunlight is good for men and women.” 

8. "Mastering” a Beautiful Thing and Sharing it with Others. 
If any person is so handicapped that he can make no other con¬ 
tribution, he can at least render the simple service of master¬ 
ing one beautiful thing and sharing this with others. By 
mastering a beautiful thing we mean, for example, studying a 
beautiful poem or story or essay until we absorb its beauty, 
until it is as much ours as if we had written it. There are 
many beautiful things besides poems, stories, and essays from 
which one can choose—a building, a painting, a photograph, a 
rare vase, delicate china, an old Italian violin, a beautiful bell, 
an oriental rug, an orchid, a cameo, a stained-glass window. 
To master a bell you must know how the rich-toned bells are 
made and how the church and cathedral bells of the Old World 
have been worshiped by the people. In your study you will 
learn of the famous carillons of Holland and Belgium—a group 
of chromatically tuned bells, sometimes as many as forty-eight, 
played mechanically from a tower-room keyboard each quarter- 
hour and by a trained carillonneur on such special occasions 
as summer-evening fetes, feast days, and market days. Your 
quest will lead you to Rossetti and Longfellow, who wrote both 
in prose and poetry of the beauty of those bells. When you have 
read of the part that the bells have had in the life of the villages 
and towns of the past four hundred years, you will come to 
recent days and learn that Josef Denyon of Malines, the great¬ 
est of all carillon players, was still living when the World War 
came; and that one of the most talented of the carillonneurs of 
Bruges fought in the Belgian army, but obtained leave of ab- 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 545 

sence just before the armistice was signed so that he might take 
his place in the belfry and, as King Albert reentered his ancient 
city, play, as he had never played it before, his national song, 
La Brabangonne. 

Your bell study will take you out of Holland and Bel¬ 
gium into devastated France, where the village folk sing songs 
about their bells and speak of them affectionately, as if they 
were loved friends. In no other way have the American people 
so endeared themselves to the village people of France as by 
the creation of an Angelas Fund, through the American Com¬ 
mittee for Devastated France, which was used for the purchase 
of village church bells—one for each village under the care of 
the committee. On the tongue of each bell was engraved the 
name of an American soldier who fell on a battlefield of France. 

9 . Doing Something Beautiful is Most Important of All. 
Making beautiful things or mastering beautiful things is one of 
the most important parts of living. But there is something finer 
and more important than either —doing something beautiful. 
It is because sunsets, roses, paintings, mountains, arouse in us a 
desire to do something beautiful that we try so hard in our 
schools, our homes, our communities, to teach people what is 
beautiful and how to get some of it in their lives. Whenever 
a person is satisfied merely with beautiful things , then all the 
effort of school and community has been wasted. One of 
the followers of Jeanne d’Arc was a nobleman whose love of the 
beautiful in music and literature was so great that he carried 
his organ and his books wherever he went. But after a time 
unaccountable murders occurred in the places through which 
he traveled. Suspicion pointed toward him, and finally he con¬ 
fessed to the crimes. The beautiful in his life was wasted, for 
his deeds were terrible. 

It is the doing of both the simple acts of thoughtfulness or 
the great acts of special service that are the finest and most 
beautiful things in the world. Usually having beautiful things 
to look at or to feel and hear gives a person the desire to do a 
fine thing in a noble spirit. When this is not the result, then 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


546 

the person has looked at the beautiful thing or listened to the 
beautiful music with unseeing eyes and ears that are deaf. 

10 . Whole Nations honor those who give Service. On the 
evening of November n, 1920, an American newspaper man in 
Paris was bent over a typewriter, writing rapidly but seeing 
neither the keys before him nor anything in the little room. He 
was tired almost to exhaustion, but he wanted the people in 
America, to whom his story would be cabled, to see what he had 
seen. "There is nothing like France tonight,” he made the keys 
say. And he went on to tell of powerful searchlights filling the 
smoky sky with all the hues of the rainbow; of hundreds of 
rockets like fountains of leaping light; of the weird march of 
the biggest torchlight procession Paris had ever known; of the 
brilliant boulevard through which the procession passed filled 
with a multitude that shouted wildly and joyously until they 
caught the faint sound of the battlesong of the Blue Devils in 
the distance; of the silence of the people as the music came 
nearer and nearer; of their mad joy when the Alpine soldiers 
marched past. When, finally, Paris was quiet the American 
hurried to his room to write. 

What made the Paris of 1920, two years after the close 
of the war, so wildly excited that the American could say there 
had never been anything like it? The evening’s wild celebra¬ 
tion followed a solemn ceremony. The heart of France’s be¬ 
loved hero, Gambetta, who, on September 4, 1870, proclaimed 
the French republic, had been taken from its tomb and carried 
in state to the great Pantheon, where president, premier, and 
all the high officials and army waited to receive it. Beside the 
pyramid-shaped car draped with cloth of white and gold and 
drawn by six black horses was another car, also drawn by six 
black horses, but neither imposing nor rich with gold trappings. 
It was a simple gun carriage on which rested a plain coffin 
draped in the tricolor. The car bearing the heart of Gambetta 
was escorting the body of an unknown soldier of France to its 
last resting-place under the great Arch of Triumph, past which 
hundreds of thousands of American boys had marched. When 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 547 

the sun set, the body of the soldier was lowered into the tomb, 
the heart of Gambetta was escorted back to the Pantheon, and 
all Paris celebrated. 

And why? The unknown soldier’s body had been suitably 
buried months before in the cemetery with thousands of 
others, the heart of Gambetta had been nobly enshrined for 
many years. What made France plan the imposing ceremony? 
Why did England, Italy, and America also honor greatly an 
“unknown private”? It was in the fall of 1921 that the body 
of an American soldier was taken from the French cemetery, 
where it had been buried at the close of the World War, placed 
on the historic United States cruiser Olympic , and with military 
escort brought to the United States. No American hero of peace 
time or of war time had been given greater honor than the 
nation gave this unknown boy, who was buried with imposing 
ceremony in the national cemetery at Arlington. President, 
statesmen, generals, saluted him. All over the nation for two 
minutes at noon on Armistice Day there was silence—the sim¬ 
plest but greatest tribute that could be offered. And why? 

11 . The Most Beautiful Thing in the World. The heart of 
Gambetta and the body of the unknown private are symbols of 
something that we respect and love. Gambetta and the soldiers 
had performed a simple service of devotion and courage. The 
whole nation worshiped them, not for what they were but for 
what they had done. In the preceding pages we have spoken 
chiefly of the kind of beautiful things that consist of trees, 
lawns, pictures, mountains, music—things that can be seen, 
heard, or touched. But always in every country, in every age, 
the most beautiful thing is service. It is because of the hard, 
brave things that Washington and Lincoln did for the nation 
that we pay them tribute. It was because of the service that 
Roosevelt so freely gave to the people that Boy Scouts, college 
students, and statesmen from foreign countries lay wreaths on 
his grave at Oyster Bay. 

The one thing among all the horrors of the battlefield that 
stands out strong and beautiful is the courage and service of the 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


548 

soldiers. When General Pershing addressed the first troops 
ready to sail for France, he said: 

You are going into France and Belgium to help expel an 
invading army. Your first duty is to be soldiers, but your 
second duty, scarcely less important, is to help all who are 
poor and weak. You will therefore be courteous to all 
women, and you will never have even a thought of what is 
evil or immoral. You will, therefore, abstain from the use 
of wine and liquor, and you will especially be very kind to 
little children. You will fear God and honor your country 
and win the world to liberty. God bless you and keep you. 

To call on our soldiers to "help all who are poor and weak” and 
to "be very kind to little children” was summoning them to the 
service that makes true greatness. If you will take a list of the 
great men of all nations and all ages, you will find that those 
whom the people most honor today are the ones who performed 
some service for others. All the other kinds of beauty—land¬ 
scape, paintings, Christmas trees, music—are sources of enjoy¬ 
ment, but they are only a means to an end. They all turn us 
toward the thing that is most beautiful, which, for the lack of a 
better word, we call service. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . Read this chapter and the following one before you study the 
different sections. Each chapter is separate, and yet the two make a 
whole. Prepare an outline that shows this relation. 

2 . You have been asked to make brief outlines of all the preceding 
chapters. Re-read these to see how they all directly or indirectly point 
the way to this chapter. 

3 . The churches are one of the things in your community that sug¬ 
gest the kind of beauty that cannot be seen or touched. What are 
some of the other things ? 

4 . What is your definition of service? Without giving the names, 
except in the case of famous persons, tell of some of the beautiful acts 
of service of persons whom you know. 


THE GREATEST THING IN THE NATION 549 

5 . Paid service is never beautiful unless the person puts into it what 
can never be paid for. Illustrate this in the case of the nurse, the doctor, 
the policeman, the mayor, the president. 

6. In every community there are persons who have given up careers 
in which they might have made conspicuous success in order to do some 
form of service for which they perhaps do not even get appreciation. 
Look about you to see if you can discover any such person. 

7 . Can you think of anyone so poor or unfortunate that he cannot 
have something beautiful in his life? Discuss some of the ways that 
the blind, the crippled, and other unfortunate persons can get some 
beauty in their lives. Turn back to Chapter XIII and read what is 
said about preparing printed matter for the blind, and show how this 
can be made a work of service. 

8. If a person’s work is distasteful to him, how can he balance this 
with the beautiful ? If one’s place of work and the home are unattrac¬ 
tive, what opportunities are there for getting in touch with the beautiful ? 

9 . Have you mastered any one beautiful thing? If so, you can 
write out an account of this. If you have not, make a choice of some¬ 
thing to master and prepare a little plan of the steps you shall take to 
accomplish this. Start a leaf for this in your notebook. A list of the 
things selected by the class will be written on the board, so that each 
may make note of them. 

10 . Make a list of some of the beautiful things in your community, 
then study each to see whether its effect on you is merely to give you 
pleasure or to make you want to do something fine. What books or 
poems have you read that have been stimulating? 

11 . Turn back to Chapters VI and XVI, where certain community 
activities are discussed. Which of these do or can be made to contribute 
to the service side of living? Show how this may be accomplished. 


CHAPTER XXII 

LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 

1 . America’s Work is never finished. No person can under¬ 
stand the present or plan for the future unless he realizes that 
he is part of a world that moment by moment is changing. If it 
were a finished world, a finished nation, or a finished commu¬ 
nity in which we found ourselves, life would be merely get¬ 
ting-getting the most possible out of what the past centuries 
have created and passed on to us. But nothing is finished. 

Year after year the planet on which we live changes, and 
human beings cannot stop the changes. Some of the changes 
come swiftly and terribly and are visible to us all. There are 
tidal waves that destroy towns and cities, that pick up monster 
ships and hurl them onto dry land as if they were toys; there 
are tornadoes that twist stone lighthouses into masses of broken 
pieces, and volcanoes that bury whole cities under the melted 
earth. Other changes take place so slowly that they are invisible 
to most of us. More fascinating than any book of fiction is the 
tale of the imperceptible rise and fall of mountains, seas, and 
islands. Within recent centuries the unknown forces within 
the earth have shifted one of the mountain ranges of the Alps 
so that it has advanced seven meters toward the west and north. 
Hundreds of square miles of California were once deep under 
the waters of the Pacific. The great transformer was the waters 
that swept through the Grand Canon to the sea. It was a simple 
process. The wind rolled into clouds moisture gathered from 
the sea; the clouds, driven by the winds to the mountains, were 
chilled and turned into rain, which filled the mountain streams 
that poured their water into the Grand Canon. Each stream 
carried in its noisy waters bits of rocks and soil that sun and 
frost had broken from the mountain tops. These pieces of 

550 


LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 551 

rock and soil are what continents are made of, and after many 
thousands of years the mountains of Wyoming, Colorado, and 
Utah gave up to the ocean enough of themselves to form a large 
part of California. No human being can stop this ceaseless 
wearing away of mountains. 

The part of the world that is made up of trees, rocks, rivers, 
mountains, lakes, oceans, is changing constantly even if we 
cannot see the changes. It is the same with the world of nations 
and of people. Things can never be "as they used to be,” no 
matter how much we may wish it. What one of our thinkers 
said many years ago is true: 

Of no use are the men who study to do exactly as was 
done before, who can never understand that today is a 
new day. We want men . . . who . . . can live in the 
moment and take a step forward. 

2 . There are Forces in the United States Stronger than Any 
One Person. The farmer who said: "What does the owner of 
land count for? What do I count for? The wheat is a force. 
Neither I nor any man can stop it or contest it,” was partly 
right and partly wrong. Even the humblest person can help 
bring about miracles that we once thought could happen only in 
fairyland. But there are forces overwhelmingly great—forces 
that seem to determine, in spite of ourselves, the direction in 
which we shall go. When in 1883 the wheat growers in southern 
California bitterly fought to keep the Southern Pacific Railroad 
from running its line through their lands, they did not realize 
that not all the men in the wheat areas of the world could hold 
back the steady progress of the railroads. The railroads were 
a force—a force that in spite of the injury wrought to a few 
persons was to make the nation more prosperous and millions 
of people happier. The iron had been discovered, the water 
power of the rivers was waiting to be used, men’s sleepless 
brains had invented processes for making steel and using steam. 
The great, inevitable force that makes men live and breathe 
and think made the railroads. 


552 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


One of the men who helped to build up the great steel industry 
of the United States showed that he understood this force 
when he said: 

The Steel Company is not the creation of any one man, 
nor, indeed, of any set of men. . . . The demands of 
modern life called for such work as ours; and if we had 
not met the demands, others would have done so. Even 
without us the steel industry of the country would have 
been just as great as it is, though men would have used 
other names in speaking of its leaders. 

No one man or group of men is necessary to run steel mills or 
railroads or steamships. All these belong to the age in which 
we live, and until their usefulness goes, or until some force 
greater than these supersedes them, they will remain. It is not 
for men to battle against the forces that are a part of the period 
in which we live, but to learn how best to use these forces. 

3 . These Irresistible Forces are Men. It may at first seem 
as if the irresistible forces that we have said sweep men and 
nations with them make mere tools of men. This is not so, for 
these forces are the deeds of men. It is what the men of the past 
centuries have done, added to what the men of today are doing, 
that determines what we shall eat, wear, and do. The laws 
which men are now passing, the inventions they are now work¬ 
ing out, the plans for new businesses they are now making, all 
are rapidly changing the world that seems to you so slow and 
unchangeable. 

Pupils can compute how much men earn in dollars, how many 
shoes they make in a day, how many tons of coal they shovel in 
a day, etc.; but how much the men of 1914-1918 changed the 
world of 1918, or how much the young people of today will have 
changed the world ten years from now, is beyond the power of 
mathematicians to compute. All we know surely is that the 
changes are inevitable. It is this immeasurable force that we 
have been describing on the preceding pages. When we spoke 
of the railroads as a force that all the farmers of southern Cali- 


LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 553 

fornia could not stop, this was only another way of saying that 
the railroads were not only pieces of iron, consisting of rails and 
locomotives, but the product of the brains and muscle of thou¬ 
sands of men—men long since dead and men then living. The 
ideas, plans, and manual labor of these hundreds of men, added 



Men seem helpless in the presence of such power as this, but it is men who 
create and control this power. (Courtesy of the New York Central Railroad) 

together, made the railroads. All the growers of wheat, not 
only in California but in the whole United States added to¬ 
gether, did not represent a force as great as that of the men 
whose inventions and plans and labor had made iron, steel, and 
steam possible. 

4 . How Each Person adds to the Forces. Any individual, by 
failing to seize the opportunity that comes to him, may les¬ 
sen this force; that is, he may delay the changes that are to 
bring greater good to a greater number. If Watt or Fulton or 
Stephenson or Bessemer or a host of others had failed to do 
their work well, the farmers of California might have tilled 



554 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


their fields in peace. But this would have meant delaying the 
time when the hunger of the world could be lessened, for it was 
the spread of railroads through the United States and other 
countries that made it possible quickly to transport wheat to 
the Atlantic and Pacific ports and thence to every part of the 
world. It was the same with the growth of democracy. If 
Washington had yielded to the temptation to which many ex¬ 
pected him to yield, and had tried to become a king of the 
United States, the rapid rise of a democratic nation in the New 
World would have been delayed no one knows how long. 

5 . Even the Pupils still in School are a Part of These Forces. 
After Taft was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
he visited his boyhood home in Cincinnati; he found many 
familiar buildings and streets—but though he walked through 
sections where he had once known hundreds of persons, he did 
not see a familiar face. But if he had had the magic to see it, 
he would have found there something of every one of his friends 
and acquaintances. Each one had left behind either some piece 
of finished work or some piece of work just begun that another 
person was continuing. The clerk in a grocery store, who now 
lived in a distant city, had built up for his Cincinnati employer 
a group of satisfied customers who helped make the store pros¬ 
perous. A teacher in the primary school who had long since 
gone to the Philippines to teach had encouraged a shy, homeless 
child who had grown to a life of happiness and usefulness. Not 
all the things done or begun by the people who had once lived 
there were good things, however. In many a Cincinnati home 
were discouraged or hopeless men and women whose discourage¬ 
ment or hopelessness had been caused by the unfairness or 
thoughtlessness of some person now far away. 

A group of students who belonged to Washington and Lee 
University at Lexington, Virginia, in Revolutionary times, 
while it was still an academy (Liberty Hall Academy), enlisted 
in the war as the Liberty Hall Volunteers, making such a splen¬ 
did record that they won high praise from General Washington. 
When at the end of the war Virginia wished to present Wash- 


LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 555 

ington with a gift as a testimony of the people’s appreciation, 
Washington accepted it only on condition that he might present 
it to some educational institution, and the institution which he 
selected was Liberty Hall Academy. The valor of these stu¬ 
dents had thus won for the school not only money from Wash¬ 
ington but, what was far more valuable to the struggling little 
academy, his sympathetic interest. 

Every school, place of work, and neighborhood tells ex¬ 
actly what kind of people have been working and living 
there. Sometimes this left-behind part is what can be seen or 
touched: it may be a house that was built, a row of trees that 
was planted, a farm that was changed from rocky, barren 
fields to productive orchards and gardens, a child cured of 
disease, a man saved from being unjustly imprisoned, a blind 
child taught to read. Such a list could be extended indefinitely. 
To make a list of left-behind things that can be neither seen nor 
touched is not so easy. The office boy may leave behind noth¬ 
ing that a person can point to and say, “Yes, that is what a 
former office boy, John Smith, did.” But something of ever} 
person goes into the day’s work or play either to help or 
tear down. The way one opens and shuts doors, talks over the 
telephone, gives orders to those under him, accepts orders from 
those over him; the remarks one makes in jest or in earnest 
about his work and his fellow workers, all are pieces of the 
unseen part of oneself that he leaves behind him in his place 
of work. When on a preceding page we spoke of the forces 
that carry whole nations either forward or backward, what was 
meant by “forces” was simply this—the left-behind part of all 
the people who have lived before us. 

6. Revolutions and Crises are the Result of the Slow Accu¬ 
mulations of Little Things. A climax like a war or a famine 
or a revolution seems to come swiftly and unexpectedly, but it 
is only in seeming. What the people had been doing and think¬ 
ing and saying for long years had finally, added together, be¬ 
come such a powerful force that it pushed something over. For 
hundreds of years in Russia there were more brains and hands 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


556 

working to destroy than to build up, therefore the force that 
kills and slays and brings hunger and terror grew year by year, 
until it ended in the long years of horror of the revolution of 
1917. The force that meant peace and prosperity and happiness 



Only when one looks backward to see what the past has accomplished can he 
plan for the future. The artist, E. Irving Couse, has shown this looking for¬ 
ward and backward in the painting reproduced here. (From a painting in 
Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, Ohio) 


to the people was present during all these years, but it was a 
force that needed to be added to patiently and persistently year 
after year until in some distant time there should come to Rus¬ 
sia prosperity and honor equal to the destruction and dishonor 
that came to her earlier. Of course not all the people had done 
unwise or ignorant things, and not all the things which any one 









LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 557 

person did were unwise and ignorant, but all the unwise acts 
and words of all the people for many years, added together, 
made a greater power than all the wise and good things for the 
same years. 

If, by some happy chance, there were someone who had secret 
magic by which he could measure for even a single year the 
things and plans and ideas, the hope and hopelessness, the 
courage and the lack of it, in the nation, he would be able to 
forecast the nation of tomorrow. But all that any of us can 
measure is the little circle of people about us. If the sum that 
we get is discouraging, then we must try a little harder to make 
use of every power in us to do more and better work, to put 
more and more of the spirit of America in all that we do, and 
by this means to encourage others to do the same. It may be 
too late to stop the force that is tearing down, but one can 
delay it, and the longer it is delayed the greater is the hope of 
strengthening the force that is building up. 

7 . Unless a Person builds upon the Work of the Past Valu¬ 
able Time will be lost. No young person can serve the nation 
wisely unless he understands that everything he does will be 
adding either to the forces that build up or to those that destroy. 
Therefore any work that he does must be built upon or added 
to what others have done. An astronomer who had worked in 
the Naval Observatory in Washington for many years, in ex¬ 
plaining what his life work was, said: 

All the years I have been in the service I have been 
carrying on certain calculations that were begun before I 
was a man and that will go on years after I am dead. 
When they are finished we shall know something worth 
knowing. Meanwhile I and the rest of us have been links 
in the long chain on whose trusty work depends the final 
value of it all. 

The particular set of calculations of which this astronomer 
spoke would at some time be completed, but on the result of 
these depended the solution of other problems, which in turn 
would take years to solve, so that the end of one meant only 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


558 

the beginning of the calculations for the solving of other prob¬ 
lems. Thomas A. Edison once said that he never undertook 
a new important task without first finding out what others 
knew about the problem, for to begin where others left off was 
the first principle in effective advanced work, and that to fail 
to avail himself of the efforts of others was to be criminally 
wasteful. So even the discoverer and the inventor are only 
links in a chain. 

It is the same with all other kinds of work. A young man will 
not need to know all the steps by which the present stock of facts 
on any subject has been gained, but he will be wasting much 
knowledge and time if he does not acquaint himself with these. 
The trouble with much of the world today is that it is wasting 
a large part of the knowledge that men have been at so much 
pains to gather. 

8. Young People must he ready to Carry On. Not only is 
it important to the nation that accumulated knowledge of the 
past be not wasted, but it is essential that important work should 
not wait years for someone to carry it toward completion. 
Never have there been enough of the men and women eager and 
willing to take up the hard tasks that have been begun but not 
carried through to success. That stupendous achievement of 
turning from its source the Gunnison River in southern Colo¬ 
rado, so that it should flow through the Uncompahgre Valley, 
might have been accomplished many years earlier if there had 
been enough of the right kind of men. In i860 a man named 
Gunnison explored this treacherous stream for a number of 
miles, but it was not until thirty years later that men from the 
geological survey of the Department of the Interior at Wash¬ 
ington succeeded in ^mapping the river even where it disap¬ 
peared underground. Upon the basis of their report, after ten 
years of drilling and digging, government engineers turned the 
river into a fertile but dry valley there to make homes and 
wealth for thousands of people. The wait of thirty years for 
men brave enough to explore the formidable river ought not to 
have been necessary. 


LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 559 

9 . Each Person helps or hinders the Nation. In every nation 
there have always been two forces at work, one building up and 
the other tearing down. It is the same today, but the ways in 
which individuals and nations add to the force that makes a 
democracy powerful are not like those of the time of Napoleon 
and Washington. Today there are still armies and navies in 
which men fight for their beliefs, but what is accomplished in 
this way is insignificant compared with the quiet work of little 
groups all over the nation and other nations. This work is being 
done by inventors, farmers, and business men and workers 
everywhere. Woodrow Wilson when president reminded the 
people that 

The plans of the modern world are made in the counting- 
house. The men that do the business of the world now 
shape the destinies of the world, and peace or war is now 
in a large measure in the hands of those who conduct the 
commerce of the world. 

This means that democracy is being "carried on” in fields, 
factories, stores, laboratories—wherever there are workers. It 
is the millions of people, the great and the small, the skilled and 
the unskilled, who are making the nation of tomorrow. 

PROBLEMS AND EXERCISES 

1 . You have already read this chapter in connection with Chapter 
XXI. Re-read it now carefully and note on a slip of paper every 
point that is not clear or that you need to think over carefully. If any 
point is not clear, be ready to discuss it in class. 

2 . Before you discuss in class any part of this chapter make a list 
of all the conveniences and beautiful things that you have inherited 
from the past. By inherited is meant all the things of which you now 
have the use, whether you own them or not. Some of these things were 
made possible by your parents and grandparents, and others by people 
long since dead whose names even you do not know. 

3 . In addition to the list of inherited things, such as houses, trees, 
roads, etc., make out a list of the rights and privileges that you have 
inherited. For every right and privilege there must be a duty. Tell what 
the duty is in each case. 


S6o 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


4 . When you have been planning your future occupation and the 
way in which you would spend your leisure, have you had anyone in 
mind besides yourself? How can you make your work contribute to 
the welfare of the nation of tomorrow? Name several ways in which 
you could use a part of your leisure and a part of your savings to help 
those who will be living in your community after you have gone. 

5 . Discuss (i) owning a home, (2) cultivating the land that you 
own, (3) spending versus saving, from the point of view of the future. 

6. Turn back to Chapter XV and discuss ways in which the present 
generation can help hand on a prosperous America to the next generation. 

7 . Consult your textbooks of history and other historical reference 
books, and learn all that you can about some great revolution—the 
French Revolution, the Bolshevik revolution, or the American Revolu¬ 
tion. What were the forces that healed the wounds made by the 
revolution ? 

8. Get from your teacher of history the names of some of the great 
failures of history. Select one of these and read enough of his life 
and the history of the times to see why he failed. 

9 . There are today many forces which are tearing down the nation 
as well as many that are building it up. Each force consists of such 
small things as a shrug of the shoulders, a careless remark, a half truth. 
Look about you for these small things. Keep ears and eyes open. Then 
look for the opposite things—those that are building up bit by bit. 
Which seems to you the greater? 

10 . If you should tomorrow leave your school and your community, 
what would you leave behind ? Would you be satisfied with what your 
teacher and friends could truthfully say about you? 

11 . What are some of the left-behind things of prominent Americans 
who have recently died? 

12 . Formerly the deeds of a nation’s heroes were handed down by 
stories told by wandering bards and by mothers and fathers. Today 
most of such stories are handed down through books, but not all the 
people read these books. If your class were given the task of preparing 
a list of the lives of Americans about whom every American citizen 
should know because of what they contributed to the Welfare of the 
nation, what are twenty of the names that you would include ? 


APPENDIX 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Preamble 

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United 
States of America. 


ARTICLE I. LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT 
Section i. Congress 

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the 
United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. 1 


Section 2. House of Representatives 

Election of Members. The House of Representatives shall be composed of 
members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and 
the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors 
of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. 

Qualifications. No person shall be a representative who shall not have 
attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of 
the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that 
State in which he shall be chosen. 

Apportionment. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their 
respective numbers, 2 which shall be determined by adding to the whole num¬ 
ber of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. 3 The actual 

1 The term of each Congress is two years. It assembles on the first Monday in 
December and " expires at noon of the fourth of March next succeeding the beginning 
of its second regular session, when a new Congress begins.” 

2 The apportionment under the census of 1920 is one representative for every 242,26; 
persons. 

3 The word " persons ” refers to slaves. The word " slave ” nowhere appears in the 
Constitution. This paragraph has been amended (Amendments XIII and XIV) and 
is no longer in force. 


1 


11 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the 
Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten 
years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of repre¬ 
sentatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State 
shall have at least one representative : and until such enumeration shall be 
made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three; Massa¬ 
chusetts, eight; Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one; Connecticut, 
five; New York, six; New Jersey, four; Pennsylvania, eight; Delaware, one; 
Maryland, six; Virginia, ten; North Carolina, five; South Carolina, five; 
and Georgia, three. 

Vacancies. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the 
executive authority 1 thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. 

Officers. Impeachment. The House of Representatives shall choose their 
Speaker 2 and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Section 3. Senate 

Number of Senators: Election. The Senate of the United States shall be 
composed of two senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, 
for six years; and each senator shall have one vote. [Repealed in 1913 by 
Amendment XVII.] 

Classification. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of 
the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. 
The seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration 
of the second year; of the second class, at the expiration of the fourth year; 
of the third class, at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may be 
chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or other¬ 
wise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the executive 1 thereof 
may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, 
which shall then fill such vacancies. [Modified by Amendment XVII.] 

Qualifications. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to 
the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, 
and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he 
shall be chosen. 

President of Senate. The Vice-President of the United States shall be presi¬ 
dent of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

Officers. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a president 
pro tempore , in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise 
the office of President of the United States. 

Trials of Impeachment. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all im¬ 
peachments : When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. 

1 Governor. 

2 The Speaker, who presides, is one of the representatives; the other officers — clerk, 
sergeant-at-arms, postmaster, chaplain, doorkeeper, etc. — are not. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


iii 

When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief-Justice shall 
preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two- 
thirds of the members present. 

Judgment in Case of Conviction. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall 
not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold 
and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States ; but the 
party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, 
judgment, and punishment, according to law. 

Section 4. Both Houses 

Manner of electing Members. The times, places, and manner of holding elec¬ 
tions for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each State by 
the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or 
alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators . 1 

Meetings of Congress. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every 
year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they 
shall by law appoint a different day. 

Section 5. The Houses separately 

Organization. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a 
quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, 
and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in sugh 
manner, and under such penalties, as each house may provide. 

Rules. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its 
members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, 
expel a member. 

Journal. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to 
time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require 
secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members of either house on any question 
shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 

Adjournment. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without 
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other 
place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting. 

Section 6. Privileges and Disabilities of Members 

Pay and Privileges of Members. The senators and representatives shall 
receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid 
out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except 
treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their 

1 This is to prevent Congress from fixing the places of meeting of the state legislatures. 


IV 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and 
returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, they 
shall not be questioned in any other place. 

Prohibitions on Members. No senator or representative shall, during the 
time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the au¬ 
thority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments 
whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no person holding 
any office under the United States shall be a member of either house during 
his continuance in office. 

Section 7. Method of passing Laws 

Revenue Bills. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as 
on other bills. 

How Bills become Laws. Every bill which shall have passed the House of 
Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented 
to the President of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it, but if 
not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have 
originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and pro¬ 
ceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house 
shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the 
other house, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by 
two-thirds of that house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes 
of both houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the 
persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each 
house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 
ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the 
same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress 
by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 

Resolutions, etc. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence 
of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a 
question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United 
States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or 
being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and 
House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed 
in the case of a bill. 

Section 8. Powers granted to Congress 

Powers of Congress. The Congress shall have power: 

To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and 
provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States ; but 
all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


v 


To borrow money on the credit of the United States; 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, 
and with the Indian tribes; 

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the 
subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the 
standard of weights and measures ; 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current 
coin of the United States ; 

To establish post-offices and post-roads; 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for limited 
times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings 
and discoveries; 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, 
and offenses against the law of nations; 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, 1 and make rules con¬ 
cerning captures on land and water; 

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use 
shall be for a longer term than two years; 

To provide and maintain a navy; 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
forces; 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections and repel invasions ; 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for gov¬ 
erning such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United 
States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, 
and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed 
by Congress; 

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district 
(not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and 
the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United 
States, 2 and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the con¬ 
sent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection 
of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; — And 

Implied Powers. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by 
this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department 
or officer thereof. 3 


1 Letters granted by the government to private citizens in time of war, authorizing 
them, under certain conditions, to capture the ships of the enemy. 


2 The District of Columbia. 

3 This is the famous elastic clause of the Constitution.. 



vi COMMUNITY CIVICS 

Section 9. Powers forbidden to the United States 

Absolute Prohibitions on Congress. The migration or importation of such 
persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall 
not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hun¬ 
dred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not 
exceeding ten dollars for each person. 1 

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus 2 shall not be suspended, unless 
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. 

No bill of attainder 3 or ex-post-facto law 4 shall be passed. 

No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the 
census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken. [Extended by 
Amendment XVI.] 

No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to 
the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to, or 
from, ,one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appro¬ 
priations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts 
and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. 

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no person 
holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of 
the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind 
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Section 10. Powers forbidden to the States 

Absolute Prohibitions on the States. No State shall enter into any treaty, 
alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; 
emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in pay¬ 
ment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex-post-facto law, or law impairing 
the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 

Conditional Prohibitions on the States. No State shall, without the consent 
of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what 
may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net 
produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, 

1 This refers to the foreign slave trade. "Persons” means "slaves.” In 1808 
Congress prohibited the importation of slaves. This clause is, of course, no longer 
in force. 

2 An official document requiring an accused person who is in prison awaiting trial to 
be brought into court to inquire whether he may be legally held. 

3 A special legislative act by which a person may be condemned to death or to out¬ 
lawry or banishment without the opportunity of defending himself which he would have 
in a court of law. 

4 A law relating to the punishment of acts committed before the law was passed. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


vii 

shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States; and all such laws 
shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress. 

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, 
keep troops, or ships-of-war, in time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless 
actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 


ARTICLE II. EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT 
Section i. President and Vice-President 

Term. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United 
States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, 
together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as 
follows: 

Electors. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof 
may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and 
representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no 
senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under 
the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

Proceedings of Electors and of Congress. [ x The electors shall meet in their 
respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least 
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall 
make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; 
which list they shall sign and certify and transmit sealed to the seat of the 
government of the United States, directed to the president of the Senate. 
The president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House 
of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the Presi¬ 
dent, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; 
and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal 
number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose 
by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then 
from the five highest on the list the said house shall, in like manner, choose 
the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by 
States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for 
this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the 
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In 
every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest 
number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there 
should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose 
from them by ballot the Vice-President.] 

l This paragraph in brackets has been superseded by the Twelfth Amendment. 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


viii 

Time of choosing Electors. The Congress may determine the time of choos¬ 
ing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day 
shall be the same throughout the United States. 1 

Qualifications of President. No person except a natural born citizen, or a 
citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, 
shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible 
to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and 
been fourteen years resident within the United States. 

Vacancy. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his 
death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said 
office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress may 
by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both 
of the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as 
President; and such officer shall act accordingly until the disability be 
removed, or a President shall be elected. 2 

Salary. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a com¬ 
pensation which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period 
for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that 
period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

Oath. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the 
following oath or affirmation: — "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will 
faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the 
best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
States.” 

Section 2. Powers of the President 

Military Powers ; Reprieves and Pardons. The President shall be commander- 
in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the 
several States, when called into the actual service of the United States ; he 
may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the ex¬ 
ecutive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective 
offices; and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses 
against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 

Treaties ; Appointments. He shall have power, by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators 
present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and con¬ 
sent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and 
consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United 

1 The electors are chosen on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, 
preceding the expiration of a presidential term. They vote (by Act of Congress of Feb¬ 
ruary 3, 1887) on the second Monday in January for President and Vice-President. 
The votes are counted, and declared in Congress on the second Wednesday of the 
following February. 

2 This has now been provided for by the Presidential Succession Act of 1886. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


IX 


States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which 
shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appoint¬ 
ment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in 
the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 

Filling of Vacancies. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions 
which shall expire at the end of their next session. 

Section 3. Duties of the President 

Message; Convening of Congress. He shall from time to time give to the 
Congress information 1 of the state of the Union, and recommend to their con¬ 
sideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, 
on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them, and in 
case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment, 
he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive 
ambassadors and other public ministers ; he shall take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States. 

Section 4. Impeachment 

Removal of Officers. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of 
the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and 
conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III. JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT 
Section i. United States Courts 

Courts established; Judges. The judicial power of the United States shall 
be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress 
may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme 
and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at 
stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office. 

Section 2. Jurisdiction of United States Courts 

Federal Courts in General. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in 
law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, 
and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; — to all cases 

1 The president gives this information through a message to Congress at the open¬ 
ing of each session. Washington and John Adams read their messages in person to 
Congress. Jefferson, however, sent a written message to Congress. This method was 
followed until President Wilson returned to the earlier custom. 


X 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; — to all cases of 
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; — to controversies to which the United 
States shall be a party; — to controversies between two or more States; — 
between a State and citizens of another State ; 1 — between citizens of different 
States; — between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of 
different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, 
citizens or subjects. 

Supreme Court. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers 
and consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court 
shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the 
Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with 
such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

Trials. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by 
jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have 
been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be 
at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed. 

Section 3. Treason 

Treason defined. Treason against the United States shall consist only in 
levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid 
and comfort. 

No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two 
witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

Punishment. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of 
treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, 
except during the life of the person attainted. 


ARTICLE IV. RELATIONS OF THE STATES TO EACH OTHER 
Section i. Official Acts 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, 
and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by gen¬ 
eral laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings 
shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 

Section 2. Privileges of Citizens 

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several States. 

Fugitives from Justice. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, 
or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, 

1 This has been modified by the Eleventh Amendment. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


XI 


shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he 
fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of 
the crime. 

Fugitive Slaves. No person 1 held to service or labor in one State, under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be 
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. 


Section 3. New States and Territories 

Admission of States. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction 
of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more 
States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the 
States concerned as well as of the Congress. 

Territory and Property of United States. The Congress shall have power to 
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory 
or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Con¬ 
stitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, 
or of any particular State. 

Section 4. Protection of the States 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican 
form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on 
application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature 
cannot be convened) against domestic violence. 


ARTICLE V. AMENDMENTS 

How proposed; how ratified. The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both 
houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitu¬ 
tion, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several 
States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either 
case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, 
when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by 
conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratifica¬ 
tion may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which 

l « Person ” here includes slave. This was the basis of the Fugitive Slave Laws of 
1793 and 1850. It is now superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, by which slavery 
is prohibited. 


Xll 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in 
any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first 
article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal 
suffrage in the Senate. 


ARTICLE VI. GENERAL PROVISIONS 

Public Debt. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before 
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States 
under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. 

Supremacy of Constitution. This Constitution, and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or 
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the 
supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound 
thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

Official Oath ; Religious Test. The senators and representatives before men¬ 
tioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive 
and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall 
be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious 
test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under 
the United States. 


ARTICLE VII. RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 

Ratification. The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so 
ratifying the same. 

Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the 
seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the 
United States of America the twelfth. 


In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names. 1 


GEORGE WASHINGTON, 


President, and Deputy from Virginia. 


Signatures of delegates. 

1 There were sixty-five delegates chosen to the convention : ten did not attend; six¬ 
teen declined or failed to sign; thirty-nine signed. Rhode Island sent no delegates. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES xiii 

AMENDMENTS 

Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition. Article I. 1 Congress shall 
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof ; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the 
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for 
redress of grievances. 

Militia. Article II. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security 
of a free State the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be 
infringed. 

Soldiers. Article III. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in 
any house, without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war but in a 
manner to be prescribed by law. 

Unreasonable Searches. Article IV. The right of the people to be secure 
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches 
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon 
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing 
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

Criminal Prosecutions. Article V. No person shall be held to. answer for 
a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment 
of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
militia, when in actual service in time of war and public danger; nor shall any 
person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or 
limb ; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against him¬ 
self, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; 
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. 

Article VI. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district 
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been 
previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of 
the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have 
compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the 
assistance of counsel for his defense. 

Suits at Common Law. Article VII. In suits at common law, where the 
value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall 
be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any 
court of the United States than according to the rules of common law. 

Bail, Punishments. Article VIII, Excessive bail shall not be required, 
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

1 These amendments were proposed by Congress and ratified by the legislatures of 
the several states, pursuant to the fifth article of the Constitution. The first ten were 
offered in 1789 and adopted before the close of I 79 1 - They were for the most part the 
work of Madison. They are frequently called the Bill of Rights, as their purpose is to 
guard more efficiently the rights of the people and of the states. 


xiv 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Reserved Rights and Powers. Article IX. The enumeration in the Con¬ 
stitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others 
retained by the people. 

Article X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti¬ 
tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respec¬ 
tively, or to the people. 

Suits against States. Article XI. 1 The judicial power of the United 
States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced 
or prosecuted against any of the United States by citizens of another State, or 
by citizens or subjects of any foreign state. 

Method of electing President and Vice-President. Article XII. 2 The electors 
shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and 
Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same 
State with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for 
as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President; 
and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of 
all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, 
which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the 
government of the United States, directed to the president of the Senate; — 
the president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; 
— the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the 
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors 
appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having 
the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as 
President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, 
the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by 
States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for 
this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the 
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the 
House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of 
choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, 
then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or 
other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest 
number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number 
be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if no person have 
a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall 
choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two- 
thirds of the whole number of senators, and a majority of the whole number 
shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to 
the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the 
United States. 


1 Proposed in 1794; adopted in 1798. 


2 Adopted in 1804. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


xv 


Slavery abolished. Article XIII. 1 Section i. Neither slavery nor involun¬ 
tary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall 
have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place 
subject to their jurisdiction. 

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate 
legislation. 

Negroes made Citizens. Article XIV. 2 Section 1. All persons born or 
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are 
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State 
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immuni¬ 
ties of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person 
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States 
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons 
in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any 
election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the 
United States, representatives in Congress, the executive or judicial officers 
of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the 
male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of 
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebel¬ 
lion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the 
proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole 
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. 

Stction j. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or 
elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, 
under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an 
oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a 
member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any 
State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in 
insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the 
enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, 
remove such disability. 

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized 
by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for 
services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. 
But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or 
obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United 
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such 
debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. 

Section j. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legis¬ 
lation, the provisions of this article. 


1 Adopted in 1865. 


2 Adopted in 1868. 


XVI 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Negroes made Voters. Article XV. 1 Section i. The rights of citizens of the 
United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or 
by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro¬ 
priate legislation. 

Income Tax. Article XVI. 2 The Congress shall have power to lay and col¬ 
lect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived, without apportionment 
among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. 

Direct Election of Senators. Article XVII. 2 The Senate of the United States 
shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people 
thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors 
in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most 
numerous branch of the State Legislatures. 

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, 
the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such 
vacancies: Provided, that the Legislature of any State may empower the 
Executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the 
vacancies by election as the Legislature may direct. 

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term 
of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. 

National Prohibition. Article XVIII. 3 Section 1. After one year from the 
ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicat¬ 
ing liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof 
from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for 
beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. 

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power 
to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified 
as an amendment to the Constitution by the Legislatures of the several States, 
as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the sub¬ 
mission hereof to the States by the Congress. 

Woman Suffrage. Article XIX. 4 Section 1. The right of citizens of the 
United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or 
by any State on account of sex. 

Section 2. Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce 
the provisions of this article. 


1 Adopted in 1870. 

2 Ratified in 1913. 


8 Ratified in 1919. 
4 Ratified in 1920. 


STUDY QUESTIONS ON THE 
CONSTITUTION 


Why the Constitution was Necessary. At the time of the Declaration of 
Independence there were thirteen colonies. Presiding over each of these 
was a governor, in most cases appointed by the king of England. The con¬ 
stitution of each colony consisted of the charter drafted in England and issued 
in the name of the king. Thus, from the very first, Americans had become 
accustomed to written plans of government. The laws of the colonies were 
passed by colonial legislatures much like those of the present states. These 
legislatures could pass any laws which did not conflict with the laws of 
England. They had power to tax themselves for local improvements, but 
England also retained power to tax them. 

It was over this matter of taxation that the final trouble came which caused 
the colonists to separate from England. In 1774, shortly after the Boston Tea 
Party, each of the colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia to talk over 
ways of resisting the taxation edicts of England. This body was called the First 
Continental Congress. It issued a kind of preliminary declaration of inde¬ 
pendence called "A Declaration of Rights and Liberties,” much of the lan¬ 
guage of which was repeated in the Declaration of Independence issued two 
years later. In 1775 a second Congress was held, which on May 10 recom¬ 
mended that each colony through its legislature establish an independent 
government " for the maintenance of internal peace and defense of their 
lives, liberties, and properties.” In other words, the colonies were urged to 
provide at once substitutes for their charters. 

On July 4, 1776, the same Congress issued the Declaration of Independ¬ 
ence, and before the end of the year most of the colonies had taken the 
advice of Congress and adopted independent constitutions for themselves, thus 
ending their existence as colonies and becoming states. It should be remem¬ 
bered, however, that the charters had been in reality constitutions and had 
been changed from time to time (as our constitutions now are) to meet chang¬ 
ing conditions, so that in many cases the new constitution which a state 
adopted did not differ greatly from the royal charter under which it had been 
living. In fact, Rhode Island adopted as its constitution the charter granted 
to her in 1663 and'kept this in force until 1842. 

Thus before the war there were already in existence thirteen states, each 
with a separate constitution much like its present constitution. When, there¬ 
fore, in 1777 the states sent delegates to Philadelphia to draw up a plan of 
union of the thirteen states for their safety, it was not strange that the national 
constitution which they made should closely resemble their state constitutions. 

xvii 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


xviii 

This first constitution, called the Articles of Confederation, was adopted No¬ 
vember 15, 1777, and continued in force for eight years. The Revolutionary 
War was fought and won by the nation held together by this agreement. 
But there were fatal weaknesses in it that became painfully evident at the 
end of the war. The national government had not been given power to collect 
taxes nor power to summon citizens to fight in its armies. 

When it was evident that a new constitution must be adopted, a constitu¬ 
tional convention was called, which met in Philadelphia May 25, 1787, and 
did not adjourn until September 17, 1787. Sixty-five delegates to this conven¬ 
tion had been chosen by the thirteen states. Ten did not attend the convention. 
Sixteen either declined to sign the Constitution or left before it was ready for 
signing. Only thirty-nine affixed their signatures to this famous document. 
Thus scarcely half the delegates really indicated their approval of the Con¬ 
stitution. Several plans were brought by delegates, one plan merely revising 
the Articles of Confederation. The others suggested radical changes. The 
final plan was a combination of the three chief plans. No one of the delegates 
was wholly satisfied with this Constitution, and certain of them refused to 
accept it without a promise that at the first meeting of Congress a bill of 
rights should be added in the form of amendments. Therefore in 1789 the 
first ten amendments (see page xiii) were proposed by Congress, and by the 
end of 1791 became a part of the Constitution. 

These ten amendments are usually referred to as the Bill of Rights because 
they list the chief liberties which the people both of England and the colonies 
had for a long time come to look upon as the rights of all free citizens. Now 
for the first time in history these rights were guaranteed to a whole nation in 
written' promises. Most of these, however, had already been included in the 
constitutions of the thirteen states. Here again the national Constitution was 
modeled on the state constitutions. Today the constitution of each of the 
forty-eight states includes a list of the rights of the people under the heading 
Bill of Rights or Declaration of Rights. 

Questions on the Constitution. 1. Every club and organization has a consti¬ 
tution. Secure a copy of the printed constitution of some organization in your 
community, preferably an organization to which you yourself belong or of 
which one of your family is a member. Study this to assure yourself that it 
tells (a) what the purpose of the organization is; (£>) in what ways this pur¬ 
pose is to be accomplished; (c) who is to attend to the task of accomplish¬ 
ment; (d) who may become members of the organization and how membership 
is secured; ( e ) how the necessary funds are to be secured. Each student should 
be able to tell these five facts about some such organization as the Boy Scouts, 
high-school athletic association, village improvement association, district nurs¬ 
ing association, country club, chamber of commerce. 

2. Let the class, as an exercise in civics, organize itself into some kind of 
association. Perhaps it would be profitable to assume that the class is to spend 


STUDY QUESTIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION xix 

the summer vacation in a camp which occupies a small island. Pupils are 
to have the sole management of the island and need to draw up a plan for 
financing the undertaking and seeing that things run smoothly. Prepare such 
a plan in the form of a constitution. 

3. After enough time has been spent on exercises 1 and 2 to make it clear 
that a constitution is merely a brief statement of the general plan of a group 
of people who want to accomplish a definite thing, the Constitution of the 
United States should be similarly studied. 

4. Appoint several members of the class to consult the library and make a 
brief report on the Articles of Confederation, comparing them with the Con¬ 
stitution adopted later. 

5. Let another committee make a brief report on what took place at the 
convention which made the Constitution. Make this report as interesting and 
informational as possible. Discuss briefly by name the four plans submitted. 
Let the rest of the class take notes on this report. 

6. There were many famous men at this convention. Name five of them 
and tell in what way they were distinguished. 

7. What special service or services did Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton 
render at this convention ? 

8. A famous Frenchman in describing our Constitution said that it was 
based "upon a wholly novel theory which may be considered a great dis¬ 
covery in modern political economy.” This statement seems a little bewil¬ 
dering in view of the fact that each of the thirteen states had already adopted 
constitutions similar in many respects to the constitution made later for the 
nation. What was the novel thing contained in the latter ? Nothing more nor 
less than the power given to Congress to lay and collect taxes. The Articles 
of Confederation had given Congress power to do many things and to spend 
much money, but not to collect the money with which to pay its bills. Only 
the states had power to collect taxes from their citizens. Turn to the parts of 
the Constitution dealing with taxes and be able to tell fully what the taxation 
powers of Congress are. 

9. Make an outline of the Constitution, using as your first heading " Pur¬ 
pose of the Constitution,” and against each heading set down a brief state¬ 
ment of the text which is covered by it. 

10. The class should be divided into groups for intensive study of the Con¬ 
stitution. Each group should be assigned a certain part for special study, and 
every word and sentence in this part should be thoroughly understood. Each 
student should be required to learn all the facts contained in the Constitution 
dealing with such matters as powers of Congress, how representatives and 
senators are elected, etc. 

11. What is a preamble? Rewrite in your own words the Preamble to the 
Constitution. What is a bill (or declaration) of rights ? Rewrite in one para¬ 
graph the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. 


XX 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


13. The constitution of Alabama contains this statement: 

" The sole object and only legitimate end of government is to 
protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, 
and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpa¬ 
tion and oppression.” 

The constitution of Louisiana contains this statement: 

" All government of right originates with the people, is founded 
on their will alone and is instituted solely for the good of the whole. 

Its only legitimate end is to secure justice to all, preserve peace, 
and promote the interest and happiness of the people.” 

Compare these two statements with the Preamble to the national Constitution. 
Which in your judgment best expresses the purpose of the Constitution ? Give 
your reasons. 

14. What is the relation of the Constitution to every law passed by Con¬ 
gress ? Select at least six laws passed by Congress in a recent year and point 
out under what provision of the Constitution they were passed. Is it easier 
to repeal or revise a law than it is to repeal or revise a part of the Constitution ? 
Explain your answer. 

15. What is the elastic clause ? Probably if it had not been for this clause, 
many more amendments would have been made. Explain this. 

16. Because of changing conditions certain parts of the Constitution are 
not effective today. Make a list of these sentences or paragraphs. 

17. Give special attention to the amendments, first re-reading Article V, 
page xi, to remind yourself how amendments are made. Select the amend¬ 
ment that seems to you the most important and be able to show why it was 
needed and what it has accomplished, or what you believe it will accomplish. 

18. Many people are working for an amendment to the Constitution to 
prevent child labor. Draw up the kind of amendment you think is needed. 

19. In the early chapters of the book we saw that in spite of the greatness 
of the nation and the seeming complexity of living today, the life of the peo¬ 
ple is made up of two simple elements — work and home. All other things 
are parts of these or supplementary to them. Select several laws passed by 
Congress which closely affect your daily life, and find in the Constitution the 
sentences which gave Congress power to pass such laws. 

20. In exercise 9 you were asked to make an outline of the Constitution. 
Now make a corresponding outline of your state constitution- In what 
respects are they alike? Compare the introductory paragraphs. 

21. What parts of the Constitution are concerned with obtaining equal 
freedom for all the people ? Make a list of all the rights or liberties prom¬ 
ised in the Constitution and its amendments. Consult your state constitution 
and make a corresponding list. Compare the two. 


INDEX 


Alaska, 77, 261, 385, 529, 531 
Allegheny valley, 1-7 
Ambassadors, from foreign countries, 
468-471; to foreign countries, 515- 
5i6 

America. See United States 
American Committee for Devastated 
France, 545 

American Library Association, 318, 
322 

American Relief Administration, 519 
Arbitration, 279, 527 
Arkansas, 285 

Army, 489-490, 525-526, 527 
Art museums, a means of education, 
314, 324-326; Metropolitan Mu¬ 
seum of Art, New York City, 326, 
477, 483; world treasures in, 477; 
Chicago Institute, 478; Carnegie 
Institute, 478 
Atlanta, Ga., 413 

Automobiles, taxes on, 200; as a tool 
of work, 353; as a form of wealth, 
392 

Avocation, choosing an, 354 

Bacon, Mrs. A. F., 265 
Banks, a part of the community, 130, 
137, 142; power of, 260; develop 
industry, 261; necessary to pros¬ 
perity, 403-404; how chartered, 
404; a help to independence, 445 
Beautiful things, why we strive for, 
534-548 

Billboards, 424, 434 
Blind, books for, 318 
Bolshevism, 56 
Booth, Evangeline, 265 
Borough, 208, 209, 220, 221 
Boston, Mass., 290, 400, 420, 478 
Boy Scouts, 432 
Budget, 200, 201-204 
Burlingame, Anson, 310, 472 
Burr, Aaron, 43, 279 


Burroughs, John, 537, 539 
Business, dependent on banks, 260; 
leaders in, 262; as a career, 346; 
how it helps make America beau¬ 
tiful, 429-431 

Cabinet, 160, 250-253 
California, 275, 382, 424, 459, 539, 
550, 55i 

Capital a part of work, 410 
Chambers of commerce, 150, 218, 350, 
465 

Charter, of communities, 84, 85, 159, 
161, 210, 223; instances of scope 
of, 85, 86, 164, 257 
Chicago, 73, 420, 503, 537 
Chicago Crime Commission, 183 
Child labor, 440, 442, 462 
China, coal supply in, 385 ; students 
from, 464; special mission from, 
472; helped by missionaries, 499; 
our soldiers help, 502; gifts from 
America, 506, 507 
Choate, Joseph, 58 
Church, a part of the community, 
142, 146, 151, 152; a help to after¬ 
school education, 314, 332; music 
of, 417; counteracts ugliness, 448; 
and the foreign-born, 462; stands 
for service, 538, 548 
Cities, a part of modern life, 16, 31, 
100, 101; government of, 210 
Citizenship, acts of, 221-222; how 
foreign-born secure, 459; what it 
means, 460-462 
City manager, 211 
City-planning department, 420, 441 
Civil service, 349, 484, 533 
Cleveland, O., 183, 413 
Coal, 383-386 

College education, 286-290, 292, 294 
Committees, in Congress, 167, 254; 

in the state legislatures, 169 
Common council, 160, 211 


XXI 


XXII 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Community, consists of work life and 
home life, 16-19; and the nation 
and state, 91-93; and the home, 
124; work the starting-point of, 
129-131; kept alive by work, 131- 
134; first step in studying, 135; 
analysis of work life of, 136-139; 
home part of, 139-144; getting to¬ 
gether part of, 144-149; what the 
people do for, 149; is never fin¬ 
ished, 151; communities that died, 
15 2-154; government machinery 
of, 159-161; taxes in, 198, 201, 204; 
not always a unit of government, 
207; changing into a unit of gov¬ 
ernment, 208; government of town, 
village, city, 209-2n; first steps in 
studying government of, 213; offi¬ 
cials of, 215; Washington, D. C., 
216; living in several communities, 
217; the county as, 218-220; the 
county as a group of communities, 
218-220; the part of the individual 
in the government of, 220; a minia¬ 
ture nation, 222 ; leadership in, 267; 
roads of, 397; making it attractive, 
418-423, 438; musical festivals in, 
417, 418; planning and zoning 
boards, 420, 441; board of health, 
441; public-works department, 
441; hospitals in, 441; and the 
foreign-born, 458, 462-463 
Comptroller, state, 200 
Conference for the Limitation of 
Armaments, 249, 279, 473 
Congress, powers of,68,75,82 ; makes 
the Constitution effective, 78; ses¬ 
sions of, 82; and homes, 119; work 
of, 159, 166-169; and District of 
Columbia, 216; leaders in, 254; 
and conservation, 378, 382, 383; 
and foreign loans, 519 
Constitution, national, 67-75, 78, 82, 
83, 91, 92, 96, 115, H 7 > n 8 , 128, 
159, 164, 169, 178, 185, 186, 198, 
199, 206, 270, 293; i-xx 
Constitution, state, 83, 95, 159, 164, 
178, 185, 198 

Consuls to foreign countries, 456, 515, 
516, 517, 518; from foreign coun¬ 
tries, 469, 470 
Corn, growing of, 7-10 
Cotton, growing of, a national indus¬ 
try, 10-12; homes and, 12 


County, board of commissioners, 160; 
taxes of, 198, 201; government of, 
218-220; and the care of roads, 
397, 423; and the care of hospitals, 
441 

Courts, 160; Supreme Court, 168, 
178-179; work of courts, 174-181; 
carry out laws, 174; settle disputes, 
175; file wills, 177; record deeds 
and mortgages, 178; state court of 
appeals, 178; state supreme court 
178; and lawbreakers, 180, 444; 
and disputants, 180; state systems 
of, 181; grant citizenship to foreign- 
born, 460; International Court at 
The Hague, 52 7; League of Nations, 
527 

Crime and homes, 97 
Customs service, 198, 457, 483 
Czechoslovakia, 322 

Dallas, Tex., 413 

Deeds, recorded at county court¬ 
house, 178 

Democracy, one definition of, 19; 
how it can be wrecked, 184-185; 
made by all the people, 559 
Departments of national government: 
Agriculture, 119,121, 160, 250, 251, 
263, 370, 374, 428, 529; Commerce, 
120, 160, 528; Interior, 119, 160, 
379 , 383, 386, 42S-428, 558; Jus¬ 
tice, 119, 160, 457; Labor, 119,121, 
160, 457, 458, 483 ; Navy, 120, 160, 
520-525, 529; Post-Office, 119,160, 
182, 529; State, 77, 78, 120, 160, 
182, 465, 468, 470, 484, 515, 517, 
529; Treasury, 119, 160, 404, 443, 
456 , 457 , 483, 5 i 9 , 529; War, 120, 
160, 383, 529 
Direct taxes, 195 
District of Columbia, 216 
District nurse, 114 
Drama, a means of education, 328 

Eads, J. B., 262 

Edison, Thomas A., 59, 275, 539, 
558 > 

Education, 271-304; school prepares 
for accomplishment, 2 71-2 75; many 
kinds of schools, 275 ; for work life 
and home life, 276, 284; minimum 
essentials of, 278-284; group activ¬ 
ities a means of, 285; college op- 


INDEX 


XXlll 


portunities,286-288; post-graduate 
opportunities, 288; what state and 
community do for, 291; what the 
nation does for, 293; what private 
individuals do for, 294-297; what 
unofficial organizations do for, 296; 
illiteracy, 298-302; after school 
days, 305-333; through books and 
periodicals, 306-308; through as¬ 
sociation with others, 308-313; 
through doing, 313; the church a 
help toward, 314; the library a help 
toward, 315-318; substitutes for 
the library, 323; and the museum, 
324; and lectures, 326; and the 
drama and pageant, 328; never 
completed, 329-333; overcomes ig¬ 
norance and hate, 329-333; music, 
drawing, and literature, 421-422; 
prevents lawlessness, 444; prevents 
dependence, 445; for the immi¬ 
grant, 458; in foreign schools, 506 
Elections, 164, 221 

Fairfax, Lord, 309, 310 
Famine, and our cornfields, 8 
Federal Reserve System, 404, 511 
Fees, a form of taxes, 197, 200 
Foch, Marshal, 232, 467 
Foreign languages in United States, 
4 SU 453 

Foreign visitors, Conference for the 
Limitation of Armaments, 249, 279, 
473; students, 464; soldiers, 466; 
artists, 466; authors and scientists, 
467; officials, 467; special privileges 
for, 470; special missions, 471 
Foreign-born people, as home-owners, 
109; families of, 121; leadership 
of, 230-232; libraries for, 316; ig¬ 
norance of, 329; large numbers in 
United States, 451-452; kind of 
people, 452; difficulties confront¬ 
ing, 452 ; reasons for leaving home, 
454; come in contact with govern¬ 
ment officials first, 456; special 
government help for, 457; becom¬ 
ing citizens, 459; how the people 
can help, 462 

Forests, waste of, 375; saving and 
making, 377; how government pro¬ 
tects and helps, 379; how private 
citizens help, 380 
Franchises, 200 


Galveston, Tex., n, 400 

Government, how it is made, 36-43; 
why it seems elaborate, 41; how it 
helps work life, 65-96, 358; and 
early colonists, 66-68; changes 
slowly, 93; and liberty, 183; and 
happiness, 184 

Government of the community, gets 
power from the state, 84-87; char¬ 
ters, 84-86, 159, 161; in the early 
days, 91-93; as it affects the home, 
124; local law-making bodies, 160, 

209- 211; officials, 160, 161, 201, 
215, 216, 223, 224; local taxes, 198, 
201,209-211; summary of, 207-2 24; 
legal communities, 207, 208; the 
town, 209; the village, 209; the city, 

210- 211; problems in, 211; survey 
of, 213; relation to county, 218-220 

Government of the nation,making the 
Constitution, 67-68; coins money, 
69; fixes standards of weights and 
measures, 70; establishes post- 
offices, 70; regulates commerce, 71- 
72; encourages inventors and au¬ 
thors, 72-74; regulates bankruptcy, 
74; and prohibition, 75; lays taxes, 
75, 198-200; gives protection, 76- 
78; departments of, 78-82; secures 
privacy in the home, 115; secures 
religious freedom for the home, 
117; machinery of, 159, 160, 161, 
164, 165, 166-169, 178, 182; helps 
secure beauty, 425-428; national 
parks, 425-428; public-health serv¬ 
ice, 443; hospitals for ex-soldiers 
and sailors, 443; and the foreign- 
born, 457-458; and foreign coun¬ 
tries, 515-533 

Government of the state, in early 
days, 66, 83-91; how it affects 
work life, 83-91; constitution, 83; 
gives power to communities, 84- 
86; gives protection, 86; differences 
in, 87-89; officials of, 91, 96, 160; 
relation to the community, 91- 
93; relation to the home, 12 2-124; 
machinery of, 159-161; taxes, 198, 
200; builds roads, 397,424; controls 
parks, 424; assists in tree-planting, 
425; board of health, 441; fishery 
commission, 442; and child labor, 
442; and the insane, 442; relation 
to the foreign-born, 457-459 


XXIV 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Government officials, chosen from 
workers, 41; efficient, 192 
Governor, 160, 255-257 
Governors, House of, 256 
Grant, U.S., 235, 344 
Guam, 530 
Guthrie, Okla., 40 

Hamilton, Alexander, 232 
Hamlin, Cyrus, 498 
Handicapped, the, 107, 357 
Hard work, builds character, 60; 
makes beautiful things possible, 61; 
brings happiness, 62. See Work 
Harding, W. G., 249, 523 
Hartford, Conn., 420 
Hawaiian Islands, 529, 531 
Hay, John, 251 

Health, of the home, 122, 123; gov¬ 
ernment helps secure, 209, 210, 215, 
440, 441; school teaches, 283 ; nec¬ 
essary to true beauty, 438; helps 
to securing, 439; prevention of over¬ 
work, 440 
Holliday, C. K., 262 
Homes, work means, 4-6; of steel 
workers, 5-6; of farm workers, 10, 
12, 18; of cities, 16; a nation’s most 
precious possession, 97; and crime, 
97; those deprived of, 98, 102 ; and 
early settlers, 98; and pioneers, 99; 
changes in, 100-101; types of, 102- 
104; essentials of, 105-108; the 
home-owning test, 109; the invest¬ 
ment test, 112 ; the slum test, 112 ; 
the work test, 113; what individuals 
do for their, 114; what govern¬ 
ment does for, 115-124; outline for 
study of the home, 124-127; taxes 
that help, 192; living in several, 
217; school courses related to, 276- 
277, 285; planning work with ref¬ 
erence to, 356; Old World treasures 
in, 478-481; in our possessions, 
532 

Hoover, Herbert, 232, 309, 500 
Hotels, as substitute homes, 102, 105, 
141, 144 

House of Governors, 256 

House of Representatives, 166-169 

Houston, Tex., 11 

Idaho, 285 

Idlers, chronic, 48-50 


Ignorance, examples of, 329-333 
Illiteracy, 298-302 
Immigration, and homes, 121 
Impeachment, 166 
Indiana, 387 

Insurance companies, 122, 137, 142, 
445>447 

Inventions, work life changed by, 3 2 J 
encouraged by government, 72; 
home life changed by, 101 
Iron, as wealth, 2-4, 386 

Japan, explored by Pumpelly, 500; 

opened to commerce, 521 
Jefferson, Thomas, 235, 236, 466 
Jury, trial by, 180; serving on, 221; 
grand, 221; petit, 221; provided 
for in Constitution, xiii 

Kansas, 267, 276, 318 
Knapp, S. A., 263 

Labor unions, 360 
Land of Last Chance, 28, 39 
Lawlessness, 98, 443-444 
Law-making, 166-173; in Congress, 
166-169; in the states, 169-170; 
difficulties in, 170; the people’s part 
in, 171-173; the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum, 172; indirect helps in, 
172-173; one of the privileges of 
citizenship, 221 

Leadership, by government officials, 
160, 161, 249-258; special oppor¬ 
tunities for, 2 2 5-230,450; by young 
people, 230, 238; preparation for, 
232 ; sturdy character necessary for, 
234; loneliness of, 235; in the navy, 
237; and followers, 238-240; and 
" drivers,” 240; failures in, 242; by 
the president, 244-249; by the 
cabinet, 250; by the vice president, 
252; in Congress, 254; in political 
parties, 254, 259; ability for, 258; 
in finance, 260-262; in business, 
262; in agriculture, 263; in help¬ 
fulness, 264; first steps in, 267; 
lack of, 507 

League of Nations, 527 
Lectures, a help to after-school edu¬ 
cation, 314, 326-328 
Leisure, 50-51, 534 
Leverhulme, Lord, 51, 539 
Liberty, and government, 183 


INDEX 


XXV 


Library. See Public Library 
Library of Congress, 318, 322, 428 
Licenses, a form of taxes, 197, 200 
Lieutenant governor, 160 
Lima, O., 422 

Lincoln, Abraham, 227, 268, 542, 

.543 . 

Listening, a part of education, 308 
Los Angeles, Calif., 304 
Louisiana, 378, 386, 400 
Louisville, Ky., 422 

Maine, 418, 434 
Majority leader, 254 
Manufactured wealth, 389-394 
Marshall, John, 232 
Marshall, T. R., 264 
Mayor, 160, 161, 211, 215, 257 
Metropolitan Museum, New York 
City, 326 

Mineral wealth, 383-389 
Minneapolis, Minn., 413 
Minority leader, 254 
Mississippi Valley, 7-10, 22, 23 
Missouri, 418 

Money, coined by government, 69; 
travels fast, 403; when it is wealth, 
405; when it is not wealth, 405- 
407; how foreign countries affect 
our, 407; war shrinks, 408; as 
capital, 410; invested in United 
States, 486 

Monroe, James, 232, 517 
Monroe Doctrine, 517 
Mortgages, recorded in probate court, 
178 

Morton, Levi P., 310 
Museums, a means of education, 324- 
326 

Music, in the United States, 417 

Napoleon, 225, 316 
Nashville, Ind., 320 
National government. See Govern¬ 
ment 

Natural resources, 365-388 
Naturalization, 459-460 
Naval Building Act, 249 
Navy, books for, 322; work of, 520- 
525 , 527 , 529 , 53 i 
New Haven, Conn., 420 
New Orleans, La., 400 
New York City, n, 13-16, 42, 98, 
181, 182, 275, 276, 433 


New York State, 162, 207, 208, 397, 
400, 413, 424 

Newspapers, a help in education, 307- 
308; in making America beautiful, 
430; give news about foreign coun¬ 
tries, 485 

Niagara Falls, N.Y., 424 
North Carolina, 285, 367 

Occupations, variety of, in U. S., 337, 
341, 342; humble beginnings in, 
342 ; agriculture, 345 ; mining, 345 ; 
manufacturing, 346; business, 346; 
the professions, 348; the trades, 
348; civil-service positions, 349; 
that benefit the community, 350; 
special opportunities in some, 351; 
necessary equipment, 353; for spare 
time, 354; and the home, 356; for 
the handicapped, 357 ; how govern¬ 
ment affects, 358; labor unions and 
other employees’ associations, 360; 
that add to the beautiful, 437; that 
strengthen the nation, 557-559 
Ohio, 422 
Oklahoma, 39-40 
Open Forum, 326 

Ordinances, community laws, 116, 
124, 160, 209, 211 

Outside world in the United States, 
451-476; immigrants,451-463 ; for¬ 
eign students, 464; men of genius, 
466; foreign officials, 467; special 
foreign missions, 471; Conference 
for the Limitation of Armaments, 
473; art treasures of, 477-481; lit¬ 
erature of, 481; historic relics of, 
482; news of, 485; loans, 486 

Pageants, a means of education, 328 
Panama Canal Zone, 530-531 
Parish, 198, 220 
Pershing, General, 257, 299, 548 
Petition, right of, 166, 222 
Petroleum, 387 

Philippine Islands, 525, 530, 531, 532 
Pioneers, courage and diligence of, 
26-31, 58; homes of, 99 
Pioneers’ Day, 44 
Pittsburgh, Pa., 1-7, 16 
Poll taxes, 200 
Portland, Me., 418 

Ports of the United States, 397-402; 
as wealth, 397; New York, 399; 


xxvi 


COMMUNITY CIVICS 


Port of New York District, 400; 
Boston, 400; Galveston, 400; New 
Orleans, 400; Seattle, 400; San 
Francisco, 401, 402; care of, 401 
President, the, 160, 161, 167, 168, 
203; voting for, 221; as leader, 
244-250, 251; as executive, 249; 
and foreign affairs, 469; election of, 
vii-viii, xiv; powers of, viii; duties 
of, ix; impeachment, ix 
Primary, 162, 221 

Private organizations, how they assist 
government, 36-40, 182, 432 
Prohibition, 69, 75 

Protection, given by government, 76- 
78, 117, 118 

Public library, the people’s univer¬ 
sity, 315; goes to the people, 316; 
not required by law, 318; paying 
for the, 319; help given by individ¬ 
uals and organizations, 319-322; 
American Library Association helps, 
322; helps make the community 
beautiful, 423; helps secure inde¬ 
pendence, 445 

Public service corporations, taxes on, 
200 

Pure Food and Drugs Act, 188, 518 

Recall, 165-166 
Red Cross, 495, 507 
Referendum, 172, 221 
Registration, 164, 221 
Religious freedom, 117 
Research workers, 297, 388 
Richmond, Va., 413, 466 
Riis, Jacob A., 234, 295, 540 
Rivers and lakes as wealth, 23,380-383 
Roads, indispensable part of com¬ 
munity, 137, 142; and taxes, 195- 
196; and local officials, 209, 210, 
215; and county officials, 219, 220; 
as wealth, 396-397; built by coun¬ 
ties, 423; built by the state, 424 
Roads of remembrance, 425 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 58, 104, 106, 
247 , 324, 432 

Saint Gaudens, 61, 62, 543 
St. Louis, Mo., 326, 413, 420 
Samoa, 530 

San Diego, Calif., 327, 420 
San Francisco, Calif., 181, 401, 402, 
413,478 


Savings banks, 112, 122, 137, 445 
Schools. See Education 
Seattle, Wash., 339, 400 
Secretary of State, 515, 516. See De¬ 
partment of State 

Senate, United States, 166-169, 254, 

S27 

Service, the greatest thing in the na¬ 
tion, 545, 546 
Short ballot, 165 

Slums, and crime, 97; test of a com¬ 
munity, 112; leaders who work to 
eliminate, 265; why they exist, 
414, 415; eliminating, 444; test of 
the nation, 465 

Soil, as wealth, 365; wasted, 366; 
wrong use of, 367-369; rotation of 
crops, 369; government and, 370; 
rainfall and, 371; irrigation and, 
372; each person’s responsibility 
to, 374 

Speaker of the House, 167, 254 

Spirit of America, 464, 557 

State government. See Government 

State officials, 96, 160 

Streets,attractive,418-420. See Roads 

Supreme Court, 168, 178 

Taft, W. H., 246, 554 
Taxes, 188-205; why necessary, 190; 
one way of reducing, 191; relation 
of, to efficient officials, 192; that 
help work life and home life, 192; 
experiments in, 194; those that are 
not paid by everyone, 195; licenses 
and fees, 197; three sets of, 198; 
laying and collecting, 198-201; 
special kinds of, 200; the budget, 
201-204; how they concern every¬ 
body, 204; and illiteracy, 300, 301; 
and public libraries, 319 
Taxpaying, one of the acts of citi¬ 
zenship, 221 
Texas, 487 

Toll charges, 195, 197 
Town, government of, 209. See also 
Community 

Transportation, 394-402; railroads, 
394; roads, 396; ports,397; bridges, 
412 

Treaties, 182, 516, 517, 527, 529, 531 
Trustees, of town and villages, 160, 
209, 210 

Twain, Mark, 310 


INDEX 


xxvii 


Unemployed, 49, 52, 446 
United States, four pictures of, 1- 
21; a place of work and homes, 
18; a nation made by hard work, 

22- 45; area of, 22; early colonists, 

23- 27; western pioneers, 27-30; 
then and now, 30-32; transformed 
by hard work, institutions, thrift, 
and government help, 32-38; how 
government has been made, 38-43; 
a nation of homes, 97-128; wealth 
of, 365-413; making it beautiful, 
414-450; its dirt and slums, 414; 
its natural beauty,416; music, 417; 
the communities, 418; in the out¬ 
side world, 489-533; in the World 
War, 489; many interests in foreign 
countries, 492; missionaries from, 
497; scientists and engineers from, 
500; soldiers from, 501; emigrants 
from, 503; in foreign universities, 
505; sends money abroad, 506; for¬ 
eign trade of, 508; foreign in¬ 
vestments of, 510; ambassadors, 
consuls, etc., 515, 517; protector of 
Latin America, 517; and "free¬ 
dom of the seas,” 517; government 
loans to foreign countries, 519; 
army and navy in the outside 
world, 520-527; treaties, 527; The 
Hague, 527; League of Nations, 
527; its possessions, 529-532; is 
never finished, 550 

University of Virginia, 466 

Vail, Theodore, 271, 305 
Vanderlip, F. A., 233 
Veiller, Lawrence, 265 
Veto, president’s power of, 168, 251; 

governor’s power of, 256 
Vice president, 160, 166, 252 
Village, government of, 209. See also 
Community 
Virgin Islands, 530 
Virginia, 162, 554 
Voting, 161-166, 221 

Wanamaker, John, 262 
Washington, D. C., 135, 216, 419, 473 
Washington, George, 234, 236, 309, 
310, 554 

Washington and Lee University, 554 


Wealth, national, soil, 365-375; for¬ 
ests, 375-380; rivers and lakes, 380- 
383; coal, 383-386; iron, 386; 
petroleum, 387; buildings and ma¬ 
chinery, 389-391; manufactured 
goods, 392-394; transportation, 
394-397; ports, 397-402; banks, 
403; money, 405-410; capital, 410 
Weir, Andrew, 305 
Wheat, as national wealth, 8; a force, 
552 

White House, the, 104, 106 

Wilson, James, 251 

Wilson, Woodrow, 59, 250, 334, 559 

Wimple, A. J., 263 

Wisconsin, 318, 424 

Witness, 222 

Work, what it stands for, 4, 16; how 
the nation has been developed by, 
22-45; early settlers and, 23-27; 
Western pioneers and, 27-30; 
changed by inventions, 31-34; 
aided by savings, 34; supplemented 
by government, 35~43, 358; varie¬ 
ties of, in United States, 337, 341, 
342; people provide, 338; as pio¬ 
neering, 339; humble beginnings, 
342; poor work, 343; various 
classes of work,344-349; that bene¬ 
fits the community, 350; special 
opportunities, 351; necessary equip¬ 
ment for, 353; for spare time, 354; 
and the home, 356; helping others 
find, 356; for the handicapped, 
357; organizations related to, 360 
Work leaders, 240 

Work life and home life, 16; taxes 
that help, 192; and after-school 
education, 305-306, 313; in Alaska 
and the Philippines, 531, 532 
Workers, in steel mills, 4; in Corn Belt, 
9-10; in cotton fields, n; in New 
York City, 16; must have govern¬ 
ment help, 42; kinds of, 46-64; 
who have wrong ideals, 48-57; who 
believe in hard work, 57-62; and 
homes, 109-110, 113; and the na¬ 
tion’s prosperity, 407; building for 
the future, 552-559 

Zoning boards, 420, 441 


* 


















